DDI10-RT-Colonialism Aff 1AC 7.26

Contention One: Colonialism

In 2003, the United States planted the seeds of a colonialist empire in the Middle East. The Status of Forces Agreement Obama committed to is nothing more than a ploy to maintain our military dominance while decreasing out military footprint
Ghali Hassan, Iraqi expat Global Research Contributing Editor, he has written extensively on political and social issues in Iraq under US occupation May, 04 2010 “The “New” Iraq” http://countercurrents.org/hassan040510.htm

Meanwhile, Obama’s “commitment” to troops’ withdrawal by the end of 2011 is flawed. It is a propaganda designed to manipulate the public and promote the perception that Iraq is a free and sovereign nation. The Occupation continues, but it is “invisible occupation”, as Priya Satia of Stanford University rightly called it. “In reality, most of the ‘withdrawing’ forces are merely relocating to forward operating bases where they appear to be hunkering down for a long entr’acte [pause] offstage in expensive, built-to-last [military bases]” (Financial Times, July 01, 2009). “But Iraqis are too shrewd to fall for invisible occupation again: indeed they never fall for it the first time ... in 1932”, added Satia. Moreover, the so-called “Status of Forces Agreement” between the U.S. military and the puppet government is a fraud, because it was never ratified by the Iraqi people. It is a deal between an occupier and a puppet government. American military bases are being built (against the wishes of the Iraqi people) to enforce a permanent colonial occupation and to serve U.S.-Israel Zionist interests. Since 1991, “the U.S. has not just been building bases to wage wars, but has been waging wars to leave behind the bases. The effect has been to create a new U.S. military sphere of influence wedged in the strategic region between the E.U., Russia and China. The Pentagon has not been building these sprawling, permanent bases just to hand them to client governments”, writes Professor Zoltan Grossman of Evergreen State College. There are nearly 300 U.S. military bases in Iraq; many of them are the size of small towns. American advisors (at least 1,400 CIA agents) will remain stationed in the largest embassy in the world in the centre of Baghdad as a symbol of U.S. imperialism.












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The Obama administration in Iraq is the expansion of modern colonialism – current withdrawal strategy only mask structures of domination carried out through the U.S. embassy and military bases
Michael Schwartz, professor of sociology at Stony Brook State University and author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context. 7-10-09 “Colonizing Iraq: The Obama Doctrine?”

Much of the complicated work of dismantling and removing millions of dollars of equipment from the combat outposts in the city has been done during the dark of night. Gen. Ray Odierno, the overall American commander in Iraq, has ordered that an increasing number of basic operations -- transport and re-supply convoys, for example -- takes place at night, when fewer Iraqis are likely to see that the American withdrawal is not total. Acting in the dark of night, in fact, seems to catch the nature of American plans for Iraq in a particularly striking way. Last week, despite the death of Michael Jackson, Iraq made it back into the TV news as Iraqis celebrated a highly publicized American military withdrawal from their cities. Fireworks went off; some Iraqis gathered to dance and cheer; the first military parade since Saddam Hussein's day took place (in the fortified Green Zone, the country's ordinary streets still being too dangerous for such things); the U.S. handed back many small bases and outposts; and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki proclaimed a national holiday -- "sovereignty day," he called it. All of this fit with a script promisingly laid out by President Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign. More recently, in his much praised speech to the students of Egypt's Cairo University, he promised that the U.S. would keep no bases in Iraq, and would indeed withdraw its military forces from the country by the end of 2011. Unfortunately, not just for the Iraqis, but for the American public, it's what's happening in "the dark" -- beyond the glare of lights and TV cameras -- that counts. While many critics of the Iraq War have been willing to cut the Obama administration some slack as its foreign policy team and the U.S. military gear up for that definitive withdrawal, something else -- something more unsettling -- appears to be going on. And it wasn't just the president's hedging over withdrawing American "combat" troops from Iraq – which, in any case, make up as few as one-third of the 130,000 U.S. forces still in the country -- now extended from 16 to 19 months. Nor was it the re-labeling of some of them as "advisors" so they could, in fact, stay in the vacated cities, or the redrawing of the boundary lines of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, to exclude a couple of key bases the Americans weren't about to give up. After all, there can be no question that the Obama administration's policy is indeed to reduce what the Pentagon might call the U.S. military "footprint" in Iraq. To put it another way, Obama's key officials seem to be opting not for blunt-edged, Bush-style militarism, but for what might be thought of as an administrative push in Iraq, what Vice President Joe Biden has called "a much more aggressive program vis-à-vis the Iraqi government to push it to political reconciliation." An anonymous senior State Department official described this new "dark of night" policy recently to Christian Science Monitor reporter Jane Arraf this way: "One of the challenges of that new relationship is how the U.S. can continue to wield influence on key decisions without being seen to do so." Without being seen to do so. On this General Odierno and the unnamed official are in agreement. And so, it seems, is Washington. As a result, the crucial thing you can say about the Obama administration's military and civilian planning so far is this: ignore the headlines, the fireworks, and the briefly cheering crowds of Iraqis on your TV screen. Put all that talk of withdrawal aside for a moment and -- if you take a closer look, letting your eyes adjust to the darkness -- what is vaguely visible is the silhouette of a new American posture in Iraq. Think of it as the Obama Doctrine. And what it doesn't look like is the posture of an occupying power preparing to close up shop and head for home. As your eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, you begin to identify a deepening effort to ensure that Iraq remains a U.S. client state, or, as General Odierno described it to the press on June 30th, "a long-term partner with the United States in the Middle East." Whether Obama's national security team can succeed in this is certainly an open question, but, on a first hard look, what seems to be coming into focus shouldn't be too unfamiliar to students of history. Once upon a time, it used to have a name: colonialism. Traditional colonialism was characterized by three features: ultimate decision-making rested with the occupying power instead of the indigenous client government; the personnel of the colonial administration were governed by different laws and institutions than the colonial population; and the local political economy was shaped to serve the interests of the occupying power. All the features of classic colonialism took shape in the Bush years in Iraq and are now, as far as we can tell, being continued, in some cases even strengthened, in the early months of the Obama era. The U.S. embassy in Iraq, built by the Bush administration to the tune of $740 million, is by far the largest in the world. It is now populated by more than 1,000 administrators, technicians, and professionals -- diplomatic, military, intelligence, and otherwise -- though all are regularly, if euphemistically, referred to as "diplomats" in official statements and in the media. This level of staffing -- 1,000 administrators for a country of perhaps 30 million -- is well above the classic norm for imperial control. Back in the early twentieth century, for instance, Great Britain utilized fewer officials to rule a population of 300 million in its Indian Raj. Such a concentration of foreign officialdom in such a gigantic regional command center -- and no downsizing or withdrawals are yet apparent there -- certainly signals Washington's larger imperial design: to have sufficient administrative labor power on hand to ensure that American advisors remain significantly embedded in Iraqi political decision-making, in its military, and in the key ministries of its (oil-dominated) economy. From the first moments of the occupation of Iraq, U.S. officials have been sitting in the offices of Iraqi politicians and bureaucrats, providing guidelines, training decision-makers, and brokering domestic disputes. As a consequence, Americans have been involved, directly or indirectly, in virtually all significant government decision-making. In a recent article, for example, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials are "quietly lobbying" to cancel a mandated nationwide referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) negotiated between the United States and Iraq -- a referendum that, if defeated, would at least theoretically force the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the country. In another article, the Times reported that embassy officials have "sometimes stepped in to broker peace between warring blocs" in the Iraqi Parliament. In yet another, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes mentioned in passing that an embassy official "advises Iraqis running the $100 million airport" just
completed in Najaf. And so it goes. Most colonial regimes erect systems in which foreigners involved in occupation duties are served (and disciplined) by an institutional structure separate from the one that governs the indigenous population. In Iraq, the U.S. has been building such a structure since 2003, and the Obama administration shows every sign of extending it. As in all embassies around the world, U.S. embassy officials are not subject to the laws of the host country. The difference is that, in Iraq, they are not simply stamping visas and the like, but engaged in crucial projects involving them in myriad aspects of daily life and governance, although as an essentially separate caste within Iraqi society. Military personnel are part of this segregated structure: the recently signed SOFA insures that American soldiers will remain virtually untouchable by Iraqi law, even if they kill innocent civilians. Versions of this immunity extend to everyone associated with the occupation. Private security, construction, and commercial contractors employed by occupation forces are not protected by the SOFA agreement, but are nonetheless shielded from the laws and regulations that apply to normal Iraqi residents. As an Iraq-based FBI official told the New York Times, the obligations of contractors are defined by "new arrangements between Iraq and the United States governing contractors' legal status." In a recent case in which five employees of one U.S. contractor were charged with killing another contractor, the case was jointly investigated by Iraqi police and "local representatives of the FBI," with ultimate jurisdiction negotiated by Iraqi and U.S. embassy officials. The FBI has established a substantial presence in Iraq to carry out these "new arrangements." This special handling extends to enterprises servicing the billions of dollars spent every month in Iraq on U.S. contracts. A contractor's prime responsibility is to follow "guidelines the U.S. military handed down in 2006." In all this, Iraqi law has a distinctly secondary role. In one apparently typical case, a Kuwaiti contractor hired to feed U.S. soldiers was accused of imprisoning its foreign workers and then, when they protested, sending them home without pay. This case was handled by U.S. officials, not the Iraqi government.



And, United States occupation is the sole cause of sectarian violence – conflict was purposefully incited and any threats of a “Civil War” are just excuses to maintain our dominance
Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, senior policy analyst for the Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies. 03-07-06, “The US Role in Iraq’s Sectarian Violence.”

The sectarian violence that has swept across Iraq following last month's terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara is yet another example of the tragic consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Until the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation, Iraq had maintained a long-standing history of secularism and a strong national identity among its Arab population despite its sectarian differences. Not only has the United States failed to bring a functional democracy to Iraq, neither U.S. forces nor the U.S.-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad have been able to provide the Iraqi people with basic security. This has led many ordinary citizens to turn to extremist sectarian groups for protection, further undermining the Bush administration's insistence that American forces must remain in Iraq in order to prevent a civil war. Top analysts in the CIA and State Department, as well as large numbers of Middle East experts, warned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq could result in a violent ethnic and sectarian conflict. Even some of the war's intellectual architects acknowledged as much: In a 1997 paper, prior to becoming major figures in the Bush foreign policy team, David Wurmser, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith predicted that a post-Saddam Iraq would likely be "ripped apart" by sectarianism and other cleavages but called on the United States to "expedite" such a collapse anyway. As a result, the tendency in the United States to blame "sectarian conflict" and "long-simmering hatreds" for the Sunni-Shi'ite violence in Iraq is, in effect, blaming the victim. Much of Iraq's current divisions can be traced to the decision of U.S. occupation authorities immediately following the conquest to abolish the Iraqi army and purge the government bureaucracy – both bastions of secularism – thereby creating a vacuum that was soon filled by sectarian parties and militias. In addition, the U.S. occupation authorities – in an apparent effort of divide-and-rule – encouraged sectarianism by dividing up authority based not on technical skills or ideological affiliation but ethnic and religious identity. As with Lebanon, however, such efforts have actually exacerbated divisions, with virtually every political question debated not on its merits, but on which group it potentially benefits or harms. This has led to great instability, with political parties, parliamentary blocs, and government ministries breaking down along sectarian lines. Theologically, there are fewer differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites than there are between Catholics and Protestants. In small Iraqi towns of mixed populations with only one mosque, Sunnis and Shi'ites worship together. Intermarriage is not uncommon. This harmony is now threatening to unravel. Shi'ite Muslims, unlike the Sunni Muslims, have a clear hierarchy. (Ayatollahs, for example, are essentially the equivalent of Catholic cardinals.) As a result, the already existing clerical-based social structures in the Shi'ite community were among the few organizations to survive Saddam's totalitarian regime and were therefore more easily capable of organizing themselves politically when U.S. forces overthrew the government in Baghdad in 2003. Sunni and secular groupings, then, found themselves at a relative disadvantage when they suddenly found themselves free to organize. The Shi'ite government of Iran, long cited for its human rights abuses by both the Bush administration and reputable human rights organizations, has actively supported Shi'ite militias within the Iraqi government and security forces. (Despite this, the Bush administration and its supporters – including many prominent Democrats – have been putting forth the ludicrous theory that Iran is actually supporting the anti-Shi'ite and anti-American Sunni insurgency.) Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr was trained by Iran's infamous Revolutionary Guards and later served as a leader of the Badr Brigade, the militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Though charges of a U.S. conspiracy are presumably groundless, it does underscore the growing opposition by both communities to the ongoing U.S. military presence in their country and how the United States has little credibility left with either community as a mediator, peacekeeper, overseer, or anything else. And it underscores the urgency for the United States to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.



The US policy of occupation has ongoing material effects. Over 1.3 million Iraqi civilians have died. Washington’s current strategy is a deliberate attempt to collapse national unity and resistance for the sake of colonialism
Petras 09 (“The US War against Iraq: The Destruction of a Civilization” James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras’ most recent book is Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Clarity Press, 2008 August 21st, 2009 http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/the-us-war-against-iraq/)

The sustained bloody purge of Iraq under US occupation resulted in the killing 1.3 million Iraqi civilians during the first 7 years after Bush invaded in March 2003. Up to mid-2009, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has officially cost the American treasury over $666 billion. This enormous expenditure attests to its centrality in the larger US imperial strategy for the entire Middle East/South and Central Asia region. Washington’s policy of politicizing and militarizing ethno-religious differences, arming and encouraging rival tribal, religious and ethnic leaders to engage in mutual bloodletting served to destroy national unity and resistance. The ‘divide and rule’ tactics and reliance on retrograde social and religious organizations is the commonest and best-known practice in pursuing the conquest and subjugation of a unified, advanced nationalist state. Breaking up the national state, destroying nationalist consciousness and encouraging primitive ethno-religious, feudal and regional loyalties required the systematic destruction of the principal purveyors of nationalist consciousness, historical memory and secular, scientific thought. Provoking ethno-religious hatreds destroyed intermarriages, mixed communities and institutions with their long-standing personal friendships and professional ties among diverse backgrounds. The physical elimination of academics, writers, teachers, intellectuals, scientists and professionals, especially physicians, engineers, lawyers, jurists and journalists was decisive in imposing ethno-religious rule under a colonial occupation. To establish long-term dominance and sustain ethno-religious client rulers, the entire pre-existing cultural edifice, which had sustained an independent secular nationalist state, was physically destroyed by the US and its Iraqi puppets. This included destroying the libraries, census bureaus, and repositories of all property and court records, health departments, laboratories, schools, cultural centers, medical facilities and above all the entire scientific-literary-humanistic social scientific class of professionals. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi professionals and family members were driven by terror into internal and external exile. All funding for national, secular, scientific and educational institutions were cut off. Death squads engaged in the systematic murder of thousands of academics and professionals suspected of the least dissent, the least nationalist sentiment; anyone with the least capacity to re-construct the republic was marked.



This type of colonialism spills over – the militaristic strategy devised to destroy Iraq’s government causes conflicts and serves as a launching point for future colonialist policies – the impact is mass death
Petras 09 (“The US War against Iraq: The Destruction of a Civilization” James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras’ most recent book is Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Clarity Press, 2008 August 21st, 2009 http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/the-us-war-against-iraq/)

The second powerful political force behind the Iraq War were civilian militarists (like Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney) who sought to extend US imperial reach in the Persian Gulf and strengthen its geo-political position by eliminating a strong, secular, nationalist backer of Arab anti-imperialist insurgency in the Middle East. The civilian militarists sought to extend the American military base encirclement of Russia and secure control over Iraqi oil reserves as a pressure point against China. The civilian militarists were less moved by Vice President Cheney’s past ties with the oil industry and more interested in his role as CEO of Halliburton’s giant military base contractor subsidiary Kellogg-Brown and Root, which was consolidating the US Empire through worldwide military base expansion. Major US oil companies, who feared losing out to European and Asian competitors, were already eager to deal with Saddam Hussein, and some of the Bush’s supporters in the oil industry had already engaged in illegal trading with the embargoed Iraqi regime. The oil industry was not inclined to promote regional instability with a war. The militarist strategy of conquest and occupation was designed to establish a long-term colonial military presence in the form of strategic military bases with a significant and sustained contingent of colonial military advisors and combat units. The brutal colonial occupation of an independent secular state with a strong nationalist history and an advanced infrastructure with a sophisticated military and police apparatus, extensive public services and wide-spread literacy naturally led to the growth of a wide array of militant and armed anti-occupation movements. In response, US colonial officials, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agencies devised a ‘divide and rule’ strategy (the so-called ‘El Salvador solution’ associated with the former ‘hot-spot’ Ambassador and US Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte) fomenting armed sectarian-based conflicts and promoting inter-religious assassinations to debilitate any effort at a united nationalist anti-imperialist movement. The dismantling of the secular civilian bureaucracy and military was designed by the Zionists in the Bush Administration to enhance Israel’s power in the region and to encourage the rise of militant Islamic groups, which had been repressed by the deposed Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. Israel had mastered this strategy earlier: It originally sponsored and financed sectarian Islamic militant groups, like Hamas, as an alternative to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization and set the stage for sectarian fighting among the Palestinians. The result of US colonial policies were to fund and multiply a wide range of internal conflicts as mullahs, tribal leaders, political gangsters, warlords, expatriates and death squads proliferated. The ‘war of all against all’ served the interests of the US occupation forces. Iraq became a pool of armed, unemployed young men, from which to recruit a new mercenary army. The ‘civil war’ and ‘ethnic conflict’ provided a pretext for the US and its Iraqi puppets to discharge hundreds of thousands of soldiers, police and functionaries from the previous regime (especially if they were from Sunni, mixed or secular families) and to undermine the basis for civilian employment. Under the cover of generalized ‘war against terror’, US Special Forces and CIA-directed death squads spread terror within Iraqi civil society, targeting anyone suspected of criticizing the puppet government – especially among the educated and professional classes, precisely the Iraqis most capable of re-constructing an independent secular republic. The Iraq war was driven by an influential group of neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologues with strong ties to Israel. They viewed the success of the Iraq war (by success they meant the total dismemberment of the country) as the first ‘domino’ in a series of war to ‘re-colonize’ the Middle East (in their words: “to re-draw the map”). They disguised their imperial ideology with a thin veneer of rhetoric about ‘promoting democracies’ in the Middle East (excluding, of course, the un-democratic policies of their ‘homeland’ Israel over its subjugated Palestinians). Conflating Israeli regional hegemonic ambitions with the US imperial interests, the neo-conservatives and their neo-liberal fellow travelers in the Democratic Party first backed President Bush and later President Obama in their escalation of the wars against Afghanistan and Pakistan. They unanimously supported Israel’s savage bombing campaign against Lebanon, the land and air assault and massacre of thousands of civilians trapped in Gaza, the bombing of Syrian facilities and the big push (from Israel) for a pre-emptive, full-scale military attack against Iran. The US advocates of sequential and multiple simultaneous wars in the Middle East and South Asia believed that they could only unleash the full strength of their mass destructive power after they had secured total control of their first victim, Iraq. They were confident that Iraqi resistance would collapse rapidly after 13 years of brutal starvation sanctions imposed on the republic by the US and United Nations. In order to consolidate imperial control, American policy-makers decided to permanently silence
all independent Iraqi civilian dissidents. They turned to the financing of Shia clerics and Sunni tribal assassins, and contracting scores of thousands of private mercenaries among the Kurdish Peshmerga warlords to carry out selective assassinations of leaders of civil society movements. The US created and trained a 200,000 member Iraqi colonial puppet army composed almost entirely of Shia gunmen, and excluded experienced Iraqi military men from secular, Sunni or Christian backgrounds. A little known result of this build up of American trained and financed death squads and its puppet ‘Iraqi’ army, was the virtual destruction of the ancient Iraqi Christian population, which was displaced, its churches bombed and its leaders, bishops and intellectuals, academics and scientists assassinated or driven into exile. The US and its Israeli advisers were well aware that Iraqi Christians had played a key role the historic development of the secular, nationalist, anti-British/anti-monarchist movements and their elimination as an influential force during the first years of US occupation was no accident. The result of the US policies were to eliminate most secular democratic anti-imperialist leaders and movements and to present their murderous net-work of ‘ethno-religious’ collaborators as their uncontested ‘partners’ in sustaining the long-term US colonial presence in Iraq. With their puppets in power, Iraq would serve as a launching platform for its strategic pursuit of the other ‘dominoes’ (Syria, Iran, Central Asian Republics…).



Resisting this colonialism is a Decision Rule: its role in the death and destruction of the vast majority of the planet requires its rejections
Nermeen Shaikh, @ Asia Source ‘7, [Development 50, “Interrogating Charity and the Benevolence of Empire,” palgrave-journals]
It would probably be incorrect to assume that the principal impulse behind the imperial conquests of the 18th and 19th centuries was charity. Having conquered large parts of Africa and Asia for reasons other than goodwill, however, countries like England and France eventually did evince more benevolent aspirations; the civilizing mission itself was an act of goodwill. As Anatol Lieven (2007) points out, even 'the most ghastly European colonial project of all, King Leopold of Belgium's conquest of the Congo, professed benevolent goals: Belgian propaganda was all about bringing progress, railways and peace, and of course, ending slavery'. Whether or not there was a general agreement about what exactly it meant to be civilized, it is likely that there was a unanimous belief that being civilized was better than being uncivilized – morally, of course, but also in terms of what would enable the most in human life and potential. But what did the teaching of this civility entail, and what were some of the consequences of changes brought about by this benevolent intervention? In the realm of education, the spread of reason and the hierarchies created between different ways of knowing had at least one (no doubt unintended) effect. As Thomas Macaulay (1935) wrote in his famous Minute on Indian Education, We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population. This meant, minimally, that English (and other colonial languages elsewhere) became the language of instruction, explicitly creating a hierarchy between the vernacular languages and the colonial one. More than that, it meant instructing an elite class to learn and internalize the culture – in the most expansive sense of the term – of the colonizing country, the methodical acculturation of the local population through education. As Macaulay makes it clear, not only did the hierarchy exist at the level of language, it also affected 'taste, opinions, morals and intellect' – all essential ingredients of the civilizing process. Although, as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak points out, colonialism can always be interpreted as an 'enabling violation', it remains a violation: the systematic eradication of ways of thinking, speaking, and being. Pursuing this line of thought, Spivak has elsewhere drawn a parallel to a healthy child born of rape. The child is born, the English language disseminated (the enablement), and yet the rape, colonialism (the violation), remains reprehensible. And, like the child, its effects linger. The enablement cannot be advanced, therefore, as a justification of the violation. Even as vernacular languages, and all habits of mind and being associated with them, were denigrated or eradicated, some of the native population was taught a hegemonic – and foreign – language (English) (Spivak, 1999). Is it important to consider whether we will ever be able to hear – whether we should not hear – from the peoples whose languages and cultures were lost? The colonial legacy At the political and administrative levels, the governing structures colonial imperialists established in the colonies, many of which survive more or less intact, continue, in numerous cases, to have devastating consequences – even if largely unintended (though by no means always, given the venerable place of divide et impera in the arcana imperii). Mahmood Mamdani cites the banalization of political violence (between native and settler) in colonial Rwanda, together with the consolidation of ethnic identities in the wake of decolonization with the institution and maintenance of colonial forms of law and government. Belgian colonial administrators created extensive political and juridical distinctions between the Hutu and the Tutsi, whom they divided and named as two separate ethnic groups. These distinctions had concrete economic and legal implications: at the most basic level, ethnicity was marked on the identity cards the colonial authorities introduced and was used to distribute state resources. The violence of colonialism, Mamdani suggests, thus operated on two levels: on the one hand, there was the violence (determined by race) between the colonizer and the colonized; then, with the introduction of ethnic distinctions among the colonized population, with one group being designated indigenous (Hutu) and the other alien (Tutsi), the violence between native and settler was institutionalized within the colonized population itself. The Rwandan genocide of 1994, which Mamdani suggests was a 'metaphor for postcolonial political violence' (2001: 11; 2007), needs therefore to be understood as a natives' genocide – akin to and enabled by colonial violence against the native, and by the new institutionalized forms of ethnic differentiation among the colonized population introduced by the colonial state. It is not necessary to elaborate this point; for present purposes, it is sufficient to mark the significance (and persistence) of the colonial antecedents to contemporary political violence. The genocide in Rwanda need not exclusively have been the consequence of colonial identity formation, but does appear less opaque when presented in the historical context of colonial violence and administrative practices. Given the scale of the colonial intervention, good intentions should not become an excuse to overlook the unintended consequences. In this particular instance, rather than indulging fatuous theories about 'primordial' loyalties, the 'backwardness' of 'premodern' peoples, the African state as an aberration standing outside modernity, and so forth, it makes more sense to situate the Rwandan genocide within the logic of colonialism, which is of course not to advance reductive explanations but simply to historicize and contextualize contemporary events in the wake of such massive intervention. Comparable arguments have been made about the consolidation of Hindu and Muslim identities in colonial India, where the corresponding terms were 'native' Hindu and 'alien' Muslim (with particular focus on the nature and extent of the violence during the Partition) (Pandey, 1998), or the consolidation of Jewish and Arab identities in Palestine and the Mediterranean generally (Anidjar, 2003, 2007).



Calling for a full unconditional withdrawal poses a direct challenge to American colonialism
Arudathi Roy, world-renowned Indian author and global justice activist, 12-7-04, People vs. Empire,
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1740/
Empire has a range of calling cards. It uses different weapons to break open different markets. There’s no country on God’s earth that isn’t caught in the crosshairs of the U.S. cruise missile and the IMF checkbook. For poor people in many countries, Empire does not always appear in the form of cruise missiles and tanks, as it has in Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam. It appears in their lives in very local avatars—losing their jobs, being sent unpayable electricity bills, having their water supply cut, being evicted from their homes and uprooted from their land. It is a process of relentless impoverishment with which the poor are historically familiar. What Empire does is further entrench and exacerbate already existing inequalities. Until quite recently, it was sometimes difficult for people to see themselves as victims of Empire. But now, local struggles have begun to see their role with increasing clarity. However grand it might sound, the fact is, they are confronting Empire in their own, very different ways. Differently in Iraq, in South Africa, in India, in Argentina, and differently, for that matter, on the streets of Europe and the United States. Mass resistance movements, individual activists, journalists, artists and film makers have come together to strip Empire of its sheen. They have connected the dots, turned cash-flow charts and boardroom speeches into real stories about real people and real despair. They have shown how the neoliberal project has cost people their homes, their land, their jobs, their liberty, their dignity. they have made the intangible tangible. The once seemingly incorporeal enemy is now corporeal. This is a huge victory. It was forged by the coming together of disparate political groups, with a variety of stratigies. But they all recognized that the target of their anger, their activism and their doggedness is the same. This was the beginning of real globalization. The globalization of dissent. Meanwhile, the rift between rich and poor is being driven deeper and the battle to control the world’s resources intensifies. Economic colonialism through formal military aggression is staging a comeback. Iraq today is a tragic illustration of this process. The illegal invasion. The brutal occupation in the name of liberation. The rewriting of laws to allow the shameless appropriation of the country’s wealth and resources by corporations allied to the occupation. And now the charade of a sovereign “Iraqi government.” The Iraqi resistance is fighting on the frontlines of the battle against Empire. And therefore that battle is our battle. Before we prescribe how a pristine Iraqi resistance must conduct a secular, feminist, democratic, non-violent battle, we should shore up our end of the resistance by forcing the U.S. government and its allies to withdraw from Iraq. Resistance across borders The first militant confrontation in the United States between the global justice movement and the neoliberal junta took place at the WTO conference in Seattle in December 1999. To many mass movements in developing countries that had long been fighting lonely, isolated battles, Seattle was the first delightful sign that people in imperialist countries shared their anger and their vision of another kind of world. As resistance movements have begun to reach out across national borders and pose a real threat, governments have developed their own strategies for dealing with them, ranging from co-optation to repression. Three contemporary dangers confront resistance movements: the difficult meeting point between mass movements and the mass media, the hazards of the NGO-ization of resistance, and the confrontation between resistance movements and increasingly repressive states. The place in which the mass media meets mass movements is a complicated one. Governments have learned that a crisis-driven media cannot afford to hang about in the same place for too long. Just as a business needs cash turnover, the media need crisis turnover. Whole countries become old news, and cease to exist, and the darkness becomes deeper than before the light was briefly shone on them. While governments hone the art of waiting out crises, resistance movements are increasingly ensnared in a vortex of crisis production that seeks to find ways of manufacturing them in easily consumable, spectator-friendly formats. For this reason, starvation deaths are more effective at publicizing impoverishment than malnourished people in the millions. The disturbing thing nowadays is that resistance as spectacle has cut loose from its origins in genuine civil disobedience and is becoming more symbolic than real. Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are fun and vital, but alone they are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe. If we want to reclaim the space for civil disobedience, we must liberate ourselves from the tyranny of crisis reportage and its fear of the mundane. We must use our experience, our imagination and our art to interrogate those instruments of state that ensure “normality” remains what it is: cruel, unjust, unacceptable. We must expose the policies and processes that make ordinary things—food, water, shelter and dignity—such a distant dream for ordinary people. The real preemptive strike is to understand that wars are the end result of a flawed and unjust peace. For mass resistance movements, no amount of media coverage can make up for strength on the ground. There is no alternative, really, to old-fashioned, back-breaking political mobilization.




Contention Two: Racial Binaries

Islamic threat discourse remains at the heart of US – Iraqi policy – this is a tool used only to justify future US intervention, ensuring an endless cycle of violence
David Bromwich, Professor of Literature at Yale, 09, Compiled/Edited by Michael Walzer and Nicholaus Mills, Getting Out, pg 116-117
The justifications of empire never run out. Suppose it is discovered that the conquered nation was actually composed of a number of smaller discrete nations, tribes, or sects. Nonetheless, these smaller units remain a legitimate object for external control and reshaping, since they pose a common problem both for the occupying power and for each other. Radical Islam today is said to present a challenge for the entire world, yet it is also a provocation that the United States has a duty to "engage with" militarily. We are the most militarized country in the world, and What's the point," as Madeleine Albright said to Colin Powell, "of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can never use it?" So we take the responsibility on behalf of the world for dealing with radical Islam. Yet the casualties we strew in our path are seldom the targets we aim at. Most of the hundreds of thousands killed by the United States thus far in Iraq and Afghanistan were never part of radical Islam; and the killing contributes to swell the resentment and drive up the hatred to which radical Islam can appeal.
That the United States bears the responsibility for maintaining right over wrong in the world, and that we ought to enforce our sense of responsibility by violence that may permissibly kill hundreds of thousands of the innocent—this doctrine presumes a degree of confidence in ourselves as judges in our own cause that, if we found it in a person, we would recognize as a form of insanity. Yet there are venerable pretexts for so expansive a notion of American altruism. One such pretext was inadvertently given by Lincoln, in a passage of his Speech on the Dred Scott Decision that has been admired alike by neoconservative and neoliberal pundits. Lincoln here said of the American founders' use of the words "All men are created equal.”



Interventionist discourse spills over to create a violent dichotomy between the West and Islam
Talbot 08 (Steven, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Sociological Research Online 13(1)17 'Us' and 'Them': Terrorism, Conflict and (O)ther Discursive Formations, http://www.socresonline.org.uk/13/1/17.html)

Sociology of the enemy examines the social process of constructing enemies, and within the context of identity politics and negotiation, creating Others for advantageous reasons. Politicians, other charismatic leaders, social elites, and the military alike, are in prime positions to construct particular representations of the enemy. In turn, these representations are also influenced by a host of other actors (academics and intellectuals, advisors), and array of sources and representations at their disposal. The proliferation of these representations through the internet, media reports, government documents, books, articles, and film has led to an expansion of an enemy discourse (as part of a deliberate and incidental public diplomacy3), assisting the articulation of a dualistic collective moral righteousness which attempts to legitimate the destruction of the Other (Aho, 1994; cited in Cerulo 1997; Berry, 2006; Hansen, 2004). Orientalist and occidentalist inspired representations of ‘enemies’ can be seen at work within the current terrorism discourse. The Australian and US national security ideology for example frames the terrorism discourse within a system of representations that defines Australian and US national identities through their reference to the Un-Australian, Un-American, Un-Western Other, usually confined to a Muslim/Islamic centre located in the Middle East, but also extending by association to Muslim/Islamist global diasporas. Similarly, representations of the Un-Eastern, Un-Muslim or Non-Islamic Other are employed by some Islamic fundamentalist groups to assert their identity and cause. Both parties construct an enemy that reflect and fuel ideological strains within the American/Australian body politic and Islamist terrorist networks (Grondin, 2004, pp.15-16). The use of dichotomous logic in these representations fails to account for degrees of ‘Otherness’ and ‘Usness,’ or diversity, within both populations. In this sense, the homogenising effects of such a discourse fails to acknowledge an ‘other – Other,’ namely, a more moderate Muslim population located within an Islamic centre and its periphery. Similarly, distinctions can be drawn between an Australian ‘Us’ and her United States counterpart. In either case, the discursive construction of a homogenous West and ‘Rest’ has the effect of silencing dissenting voices residing within both camps.

The endpoint of this discursive dichotomy is worldwide civil war
Enns 4 (Diane, Philosophy Department at the University of Toronto, John Hopkins University Press, Bare Life and the Occupied Body, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v007/7.3enns.html)

Agamben warns that we currently face the most extreme and dangerous developments of the paradigm of security in the name of a state of emergency. Rapidly imposing itself as the basic principle of state activity, security, he argues, is becoming the sole criterion of political legitimization while traditional tasks of the state surrender to a gradual neutralization of politics.2 Ironically, the more security reasoning is promoted, the more vulnerable we become. This is the ultimate risk. Security and terrorism have become a single deadly system in which they legitimate and justify each other's actions. The risk is twofold according to Agamben: not only does the paradigm of security develop a "clandestine complicity of opponents" in which resistance and power are locked together in a mutually reinforcing relationship, but it also leads to "a worldwide civil war which destroys all civil coexistence."3 This is the result of the dependency of security measures on maintaining a state of emergency.




Withdrawing specifically US troops from Iraq serves as a springboard to prevent future intervention
Everest 04 (Larry Everest, Common Courage Press, 2004, “Oil, Power, and Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda”)

Since the end of World War II, dominating the Middle East and controlling these vast oil supplies have been crucial to U.S. foreign policy under 11 different presidents. In pursuit of these objectives, the U.S. acted covertly and overtly, employing the carrot of aid and the stick of military assault—installing and overthrowing governments, exerting economic, political and military pressure, waging wars, even threatening the use of nuclear weapons. The pillars of U.S. control have included the Shah’s regime in Iran, the state of Israel, and the subservience of repressive Arab rulers. Yet maintaining control of this volatile region of deep poverty, rapid social change, broad popular resistance, and growing anti-U.S. anger has been fraught with difficulties. During the tumultuous decades following World War II, U.S. dominance was repeatedly challenged and often thwarted by the rise of Arab nationalism, the explosion of Palestinian resistance to Israeli colonialism, the 1979 overthrow of the hated Shah of Iran and the subsequent rise of Islamist movements, and by its competition with other global powers—especially its Cold War rivalry with the nuclear-armed Soviet empire. Iran and Iraq, now labeled part of an “axis of evil,” have posed particular challenges to U.S. control. These two Persian Gulf states have adequate water supplies, enormous oil reserves, and relatively large populations. Both have experienced revolutions that put in power forces who sought to tap into nationalist sentiments in the area and turn their country’s assets into greater regional power and influence. This course threatened to impede U.S. hegemony and turned Iraq and Iran into frequent targets of American intrigues and interventions. President Bush and his cohorts have attempted to obscure this history with their talk of a “war on terror” that pits “good versus evil” and champions of “freedom” against those who “hate our freedoms.” The history we will explore in the next 7 chapters makes clear why U.S. officials studiously avoid the actual record of American actions in Iraq and the Middle East—in fact they command us to avoid it as well: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists,” Bush declares. No wonder. This record reveals a starkly different reality than the government fantasies offered to justify intervention and war. Four broad, interconnected themes emerge: For over 60 years, U.S. actions in Iraq and the Persian Gulf have been guided by calculations of global empire, regional domination, and overall control of Persian Gulf oil. As a result, they have never brought liberation, but have instead inflicted enormous suffering and perpetuated oppression. There are deep national, social and class divisions running through the societies of the Middle East, but foreign domination—by the U.S. in particular—remains the main obstacle to a more just social order. Second, U.S. actions have brought neither peace nor stability, but spawned a deepening spiral of resistance, instability, intervention and war. There are connections here, and a trajectory to events which we will explore, from the 1953 coup that installed the Shah in Iran to the 1979 revolution that overthrew him, to the subsequent Iran-Iraq war, to the first U.S. Gulf War in 1991, and then the second in 2003. The new U.S. National Security Strategy and its offspring—the “war on terror”—are efforts to forcibly resolve these growing impediments. Third, this war represents a further, horrific escalation of that deadly spiral of U.S. intervention and it is only the beginning. Washington has dispatched its military to conquer and occupy a country in the heart of the Arab world, perhaps for years to come, and use it as a springboard for further maneuvers and aggressions in the region. Finally, the history of foreign intervention in the Persian Gulf demonstrates that grand ambitions of conquest and control are one thing, but realizing them can be quite another. Oppression breeds resistance, actions provoke reactions, and events often careen beyond the control of their initiators in unexpected ways.




Iraq is uniquely key in our fight against US interventionis – there is no modern equivalent
Priyamvada Gopal lecturer at cambridge on colonial and post-colonial literatures and Neil Lazarus- B.A. in Political Science from the University of Wales, consultant for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israel Air Force, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, Jewish Federations, Keshet Television, The World Bank, Harvard University Extension Courses in Israel, Yad Vashem, Hillel, Hadassah, Birthright, the Jewish Agency, UNESCO 2006“59: After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies” Editorial http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/newformations/archive/editorial59.html)

The specific significance of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, in these terms, is to make it obvious, not only that imperialism is not over, but, on the contrary, that any attempt to formulate a theory of the contemporary conjuncture must begin with this category, in both of its major received usages, political and economic. It is the transparency of this fact that does the work where 'Iraq' is concerned. Blood and lucre - 'Iraq' brings incontrovertibly to widespread attention, as no imperialist enterprise since Vietnam has been able to do, evidently, that imperialism runs like a bloodied thread, unbroken, throughout the long twentieth century. As Crystal Bartolovich puts it in her contribution to this issue, imperialism looms as a dominant 'uncompleted project' of capitalist modernity. 'Iraq' signals this in a way that Nicaragua, Haiti, Grenada, Panama, the Philippines, Angola, Somalia, Cuba, Venezuela, and any number of other recent political examples that might be cited here, seem not to. The 'Iraq enterprise '3 conjoins violence and military conquest with expropriation, pillage and undisguised grabbing for resources. As the collective etort put it n an essay published n 2005, what the Iraq adventure represents is … a radical, punitive restructuring of the conditions necessary for expanded profitability -it paves the way … for new rounds of American-led dispossession and capital accumulation. This was a neo-liberal putsch, made in the name of globalisation and free-marked democracy. It was intended as the prototype of a new form of military neo-liberalism.4



Thus the plan: the United States federal government should withdraw all of the United States federal government’s military and police presence from Iraq.

DDI10-RT-Kritikal Japan Aff 1AC 7.26

1AC

Contention 1 – Sexual Abuse

The military presence in East Asia requires masculinity and this spills over - they train and utilize sexism and hyper-masculine culture to justify the sexual abuse of women
Gwyn Kirk and Carolyn Bowen Francis, Kirk - Ph.D. is visiting faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Oregon (2009-10) and a founder member of Women for Genuine Security, Francis- one of the founding members of Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence, “Redefining Security: Women Challenge U.S. Military Policy and Practice in East Asia” Berkeley Women's Law Journal 15 Berkeley Women's L.J. (2000) http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/berkwolj15&div=11&g_sent=1&collection=journals#247 EmiW

Many of the problems created by U.S. military presence in East Asia stem from the sexist attitudes and hyper-masculine culture that pervade the military. Different branches of the U.S. Armed Forces have developed this hyper-masculine culture to varying degrees, with the Air Force at the lower end of the spectrum and the Marines at the higher end." This phenomenon has had far reaching effects in places such as Okinawa, where Marines account for sixty percent of the U.S. troops.” Young boys in the United States, as in many parts of the world, develop their masculine identity during early childhood through a combination of adventure stories, comics, cartoons, competitive team sports, war toys, computer games, news reporting, ads, television shows, and films.” This routine gender socialization is taken further in basic military training where new recruits are pushed to the limits of their strength and stamina and are trained to follow orders without question, no matter how nonsensical or humiliating." As part of military training, servicemen learn how to use highly sophisticated weaponry and equipment; they are socialized as warriors. A key aspect of this training and socialization process is the way recruits are insulted and reviled by drill sergeants as “women” and “queers” as part of the military promise “to make a man” of them." According to feminist scholars of military systems and international relations, militarism depends on a clearly gendered division of labor and the maintenance of hierarchy, including sexism and violence against women.” Military socialization involves the construction of a militarized masculinity that emphasizes heroism, physical strength, emotional detachment, the capacity for violence and killing, and an appearance of invulnerability.” This view of masculinity involves the construction of male sexuality as assertive and controlling," and results in three consequences: the need for the institutionalization of military prostitution, U.S. military abuse of women in host communities, and sexual abuse of women in the military.



The military requires a dehumanization of women and children and only sees them as objects of sexual exploitation, transferring diseases and leaving thousands of Amerasian children to suffer from stigma
Kirk, Cornwell, Okazawa-Rey, 1996 [FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS, “Women and the U.S. Military in East Asia” Written by Gwyn Kirk, (Kirk - Ph.D. is visiting faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Oregon (2009-10) and a founder member of Women for Genuine Security), Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey are founder-members of the East Asia-U.S. Women's Network Against U.S. Militarism. Rachel Cornwell is Program Assistant for the Demilitarization and Alternative Security Program of the Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace. Edited by Martha Honey (IPS) and Tom Barry (IRC), http://www.lightparty.com/Politics/ForeignPolicy/WomanInMilitary.html, EmiW]
Negative effects of U.S. militarism on women and children in East Asia include sexual exploitation, physical and sexual violence, the dire situation of many Amerasian children, and health hazards of pollution caused by military operations. - To maintain its capacity to fight two regional wars at the same time, the Pentagon plans to maintain 100,000 troops in the Asia-Pacific region for the foreseeable future. - The concept of security is too militarized and does not include the human rights of women and children and the protection of the physical environment. The Pentagon's objective is to be capable of fighting two regional wars at the same time. For planning purposes these are assumed to be in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula. This scenario assumes that 100,000 U.S. troops will continue to be based in East Asia for the foreseeable future. Currently there are 37,000 U.S. military personnel in Korea and some 60,000 in Japan, including 13,000 on ships home-ported there. The islands of Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan, house 39 bases and installations (75% of all U.S. bases in Japan) although Okinawa is only 0.6% of the country's land area. 30,000 troops and another 22,500 family members are stationed in Okinawa. There were extensive U.S. bases in the Philippines until 1992, when the Philippine Senate voted against renewal of their leases. The U.S. subsequently proposed a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) to cover situations when U.S. troops are in the Philippines for joint exercises or shore leave. The VFA would give access to Philippine ports and airports on all the main islands for refueling, supplies, repairs, and rest & recreation (R & R)-potentially far greater access than before, but under the guise of commercial arrangements and without the expense of maintaining permanent workforces and facilities. The VFA has to be ratified by the Philippine Senate before going into effect. It is currently under discussion. Sexual violence, sexual exploitation, thousands of fatherless Amerasian children, and health problems linked to environmental contamination are some of the damaging effects of the U.S. military presence in East Asia. Research conducted by a group called Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence shows that U.S. troops in Okinawa have committed more than 4,700 reported crimes since 1972, when Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration. Many of these were crimes of violence against women. In Korea, too, the number of crimes is high. A particularly brutal rape and murder of a barwoman, Yoon Kum Ee, in 1992 galvanized human rights advocates to establish the National Campaign for the Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea in order to document these crimes and help victims claim redress. Violence against women is seriously underreported, due to the victims' shame and fear or their belief that perpetrators will not be apprehended. Women who work in the bars, massage parlors, and brothels near U.S. bases are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. The sexual activity of foreign-based U.S. military personnel, including (but not exclusively) through prostitution, has had very serious effects on women's health, precipitating HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions, drug and alcohol dependency, and mental illness. In Korea, Japan, and the Phillipines, Amerasian children born to women impregnated by U.S. troops are a particularly stigmatized group. They are often abandoned by their military fathers and raised by single Asian mothers. They live with severe prejudice and suffer discrimination in education and employment due to their physical appearance and their mothers' low status. Those with African-American fathers face even worse treatment than those having Caucasian fathers.



The example we use is that the US military continues to participate in prostitution and rape despite Japanese laws prohibiting it. Government officials are flippant, demonstrating the devaluation of women
(Yuki Fujime, Associate Professor in the Department of International Studies at Osaka University of Foreign Languages, 3-24-2006, Social Science Japan Journal Vol. 9, No. 1, pp 33–50, “Japanese Feminism and Commercialized Sex: The Union of Militarism and Prohibitionism”, http://ssjj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/9/1/33) SH

The situation in Okinawa, removed from the mainland of Japan and under the jurisdiction of the US, was even more overt than in the Japanese mainland. Beginning in 1946 with a ‘prohibition on prostitution with occupation forces’, the US military issued a stream of ordinances in regard to the buying and selling of sex and thoroughly regulated prostitution and STDs. They wiped out prostitution they feared would spread STDs through the overzealous use of the off-limits policy and created the ‘A Sign’ system of granting permission to operate to sex-related businesses that certified the health of their women. During the Vietnam War, the number of female prostitutes reached 15,000 (Naha-shi 2001: 290). Around the time of the return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty in 1972, there was a Prostitution Prevention Law in effect in Okinawa, just as on the mainland. But whereas the American military bases on the mainland were gradually being abandoned or reduced in size, 75% of the American bases in Japan were concentrated in Okinawa, and incidents of sexual violence by US troops continued to occur frequently. According to an investigation by the Association of Women who Reject the Bases and the Military (Kichi to Guntai o Yurusanai Onnatachi no Kai), there were eight cases of rape and murder between 1970 and the mid-1980s, and seven of those victims were hostesses (‘Okinawa o Shiru’ Hensan Iinkai 2000: 470–473). In 1995, at a time when Okinawa was in an uproar over an incident in which three American soldiers raped a young girl, Pacific Commander Admiral Richard Mackey made a public gaffe when, upon hearing that the soldiers used a rental car when committing the rape, remarked that ‘if they had money for a rental car, they could have just paid for a prostitute’. He made no attempt to hide the fact that it was standard practice not to reprimand US soldiers for buying sex.




The Japanese State pimps its women to satisfy the desire of the US military, mobilizing women as tools to maintain power relations - a manifestation of the patriarchal state
Lie 1997 [John, Professor of sociology and Dean of International and Area Studies at the University of California, Berkeley “The State as Pimp: Prostitution and the Patriarchal State in Japan in the 1940s” The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Spring, 1997), pp. 260 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Midwest Sociological Society, EmiW]
The Japanese state organized and promoted sexual work in the 1940s. During World War II, the military was instrumental in recruiting Japanese and Korean women into "comfort divisions" to serve officers and soldiers within and outside of Japan. After Japan's defeat, the state organized Japanese women to serve the occupying American soldiers sexually. In short, the Japanese state functioned as a pimp in the l940s. The activities of the Japanese state in the 1940s suggest that it is problematic to separate the discussion of political power from the issue of sexuality. This study also demonstrates that prostitution does not occur simply from men's sexual desires or “deviant” women’s willing- ness to offer sex for money but because of the underlying structural conditions and concrete organizations. The prerequisites of modem, organized prostitution include the regulating or administrative state, urbanization and the commodification of social life, and the concomitant end of feudal sexual relations. More concretely, prostitution usually entails organizations-be it the state or private sexual entrepreneurs-to sustain relations of sexual exchange between prostitutes and their clients. In this sense, the study of prostitution must be placed in the analysis of power relations, that it is in the realm of political and sexual economy. Patriarchy is not an all-encompassing principle of power in society. Men do not control women but rather a particular group of men control a particular group of women. Just as (predominantly fanning and working) women from colonized Korea were mobilized by the Japanese state, some Japanese women were mobilized when Japan was “colonized” by the United States. International and internal power relations were critical to the formation of prostitution organizations. The Japanese state as pimp is but an extreme manifestation of the modem patriarchal state. The quest for power and wealth justified in terms of protecting “innocent” women legitimates the colonization of not just another country but its own women as well. In so doing, the state creates alliances across nations, classes, and genders; it is not outright coercion but hegemony that makes the rule of the modem state effective. The modem patriarchal state, as well as patriarchal social structure, are ensembles of overlapping power relations, not instances of simple gender hierarchy and domination. The road to understanding the power of patriarchal ideologies and institutions lies in tracing the concrete operations of power relations.





Maintaining the patriarchal ideology of control makes all forms of oppression, otherization and environmental destruction inevitable
Cuomo, 02 Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of Cincinnati, 2002 (Chris, ETHICS & THE ENVIRONMENT, 2002, p.3) EmiW
I take that phrase “power and promise,” an unusually optimistic measure for anything in the contemporary discipline of philosophy, from the title of Karen Warren’s widely-read and often reprinted 1991 essay, “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism.” That essay includes an argument that is basic to Warren’s Ecofeminist Philosophy, and that is commonly characterized as the fundamental insight of ecofeminism. The view argued for is that a “logic of domination” that divides the world into bifurcated hierarchies is basic to all forms of oppression and domination. This logic (which Warren also calls a “conceptual framework”) is a way of thinking that encourages separating from and mistreating nature and members of subordinated groups, for no good reason. In addition, the conceptual frameworks that are used to justify racism, sexism, and the mistreatment of nature (etc.), are interwoven and mutually reinforcing. Some ecofeminists find that the very aspects of identity and otherness (gender, race, class, species, etc.) are created through conceptual frameworks that encourage domination rather than connection, but Warren remains agnostic about such ontological issues. Her emphasis instead is on a more basic point - that the morally loaded concepts through which we understand ourselves and reality (and through which “we” humans have historically constructed knowledge) are at the core of the terrible ecological and social messes we currently face.


Contention 2 – Imperialism

The militarization of Okinawa is made politically invisible and has become a part of Okinawan life, but reaffirms US imperialism, creating gendered hierarchies which “feminize” Okinawans and make them inferior
Ginoza 5 (Ayano, September, of Women’s Studies at Washington State University “American Village as a Space of Militarism and Tourism: U.S. Militarism, Gender Hierarchy, Class, and Race in Okinawa”, . MX)
In the same web site, the Ferris wheel glares in the night landscape of the American Village as an indication of the power of America, and triumph of Western technology. It’s a sign that tells you that you are in America. In other words, this space provides an escape from the feeling of being in Okinawa, and a place where America is accepted as cultural hegemony over Okinawan indigenous landscape. The message is of America as the center of culture, rather than Okinawa. The rhetoric reveals a statepromoted reaffirmation of U.S. cultural imperialism over Okinawan landscape. Thus, the imperialism systematically operates to transform and redefine the militarized Okinawan society. Also on this web site, the Okinawan government strategically posits the U.S. military as “a great influence” on Okinawan culture, and uses it as a cultural resource for their development of the tourist economy. Thus, for them, the U.S. military bases in the town are politically and economically indispensable. The politically constructed, imagined American landscape and buildings provide tourists with “the feeling of being in America” (bankoku shinryokan). Here, the landscape offers an image of “America” as positive and powerful—powerful enough that this American space nurtures young Okinawans to be famous performers. According to Cynthia Enloe, this is a process of militarization which “managed to slip [the military bases] into the daily lives of the nearby community” to make the military bases “politically invisible” (Bananas 66). This political invisibility of the U.S. military bases further leads young Okinawans to easily associate America with a road to their dreams. The political is camouflaged as cultural and the domination of American culture as both political and economic enterprises. This is hidden behind notions of entertainment and allows Okinawans, especially younger generations of Okinawans, to become part of this entertainment and cultural landscape. By accepting and valuing the military bases as the economic and cultural developers for the American Village, the town at the same time embraces the ideology of militarism8 and militarizing young Okinawans’ view of America. According to Enloe in The Curious Feminist, the process of militarization is not “automatic,” but it is “a sociopolitical process” which rests on “entrenchment of ideas about ‘manly men’ and ‘real women’” (219). Thus, the militarization9 is re-encouraged in the space by privileging American masculinity and feminizing Okinawa.




US imperialism is a tripartite combination of imperialist thought, and racial and sexual inequalities which justify the repeated sexual oppression in Japan – the hyper-sexed and submissive stereotype of Japanese women allows servicemen to justify their rapes as consensual
Woan 2008 [Sunny, a J.D. of Public Interest and Social Justice Law at Santa Clara University, 2008, “White Sexual Imperialism: A Theory of Asian Feminist Jurisprudence, http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/walee14&div=17&g_sent=1&collection=journals#283, pg. 286-7, EmiW]
Despite significant improvements in racial and sexual equality over the last few decades, U.S. servicemen’s treatment of women is Asia has failed to progress. In the mid-80’s, international controversy flared over a Japanese incident in Japan in which two U.S. marines and a U.S. Navy seaman gang-raped a twelve year old Japanese girl in Okinawa, Japan. They ambushed the girl after watching her enter a stationary store. The two Marines bound the girl with tape, pulled her shorts and underwear down to her ankles, and after the three men raped her, remarked that the girl looked like she enjoyed it. To filter an analysis of the Okinawa incident through the lenses of either sexual inequality or racial inequality exclusively, fails to convey fully why this twelve year old girl suffered. While many scholars see the convergence of sex and race stereotypes as the root cause of the incident, examination of only these two components is insufficient. To comprehend the gravity of harm caused by sexual-racial disparities between White men and Asian women demands a tripartite inquest. This inquest must conjoin colonial history along with that of sex and race related forces. First, the legacy of imperialism explains why the U.S. servicemen occupied Japan. After the allies defeated the Axis powers in World War II, the United States decided to meddle in East Asian political affairs: Namely by regulating Japan to prevent it from engaging in imperialism. A sense of White supremacy meant the world could fall complacent to the idea that White imperialism was somehow “better” than Asian imperialism. Thus, while Japanese military presence in East Asia posed a world threat, American presence would not. Second, the prevailing attitude that Asian women occupy an inferior position to White women and more directly, to White men, in turn appeased the consciences of these three servicemen enough to rape and express belief that she enjoyed the sexual conquest. This underscores the idea that in the eyes of White men, Asian women seem to exist solely for their sexual gratification as hyper-sexed and unconditionally submissive creatures.” The stereotype of Asian women always consenting to sex allowed the three servicemen to deny the act as a rape. It is this potent tripartite combination of imperialist thought, racial inequality, and sexual inequality that perpetuate violence against Asian women by White men. Had these components not come together under White sexual imperialism, the Okinawa incident probably would not have occurred. Asian and diasporic Asian women face higher risks of racial and sexual harassment than their White female peers. One of the main theories behind this is that the Asian experience cannot escape the stain of sexual imperialism, a stain which simply does not apply to the White woman’s experience.” Although the theory of intersectionality between race and gender alone cannot fully articulate Asian and diasporic Asian women’s lives; rather, the concurrent operation and interactive mutual dependency between race, sexuality, and dimensions of colonialism expound on their subordination.” This section comments on the present-day ramifications of White male exploitation and domination of Asian women and the feminist issues raised by the grievous legacy of White sexual imperialism left in both Asia and Asian America. The first part surveys Joo v. Japan,” a recent court decision where Asian women, who were the victims of atrocious war and sex crimes, brought suit in U.S. courts. The omission of an analysis through White sexual imperialism may explain why the court ruled against the women. The second part then shows how White sexual imperialism provides a compelling rationale for several contemporary issues of sexual-racial inequality facing Asian and diasporic Asian women.




The Imperialist ambitions of the United States will lead to endless cycles of wars and holocaust
(John Bellamy Foster, Professor of Sociology at University of Oregon, April 2004, “The New Age of Imperialism”, Monthly Review vol. 55 no. 3, http://www.monthlyreview.org/0703jbf.htm)SH

At the same time, it is clear that in the present period of global hegemonic imperialism the United States is geared above all to expanding its imperial power to whatever extent possible and subordinating the rest of the capitalist world to its interests. The Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea Basin represent not only the bulk of world petroleum reserves, but also a rapidly increasing proportion of total reserves, as high production rates diminish reserves elsewhere. This has provided much of the stimulus for the United States to gain greater control of these resources—at the expense of its present and potential rivals. But U.S. imperial ambitions do not end there, since they are driven by economic ambitions that know no bounds. As Harry Magdoff noted in the closing pages of The Age of Imperialism in 1969, “it is the professed goal” of U.S. multinational corporations “to control as large a share of the world market as they do of the United States market,” and this hunger for foreign markets persists today. Florida-based Wackenhut Corrections Corporation has won prison privatization contracts in Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands Antilles (“Prison Industry Goes Global,” www.futurenet.org, fall 2000). Promotion of U.S. corporate interests abroad is one of the primary responsibilities of the U.S. state. Consider the cases of Monsanto and genetically modified food, Microsoft and intellectual property, Bechtel and the war on Iraq. It would be impossible to exaggerate how dangerous this dual expansionism of U.S. corporations and the U.S. state is to the world at large. As IstvE1n ME9szE1ros observed in 2001 in Socialism or Barbarism, the U.S. attempt to seize global control, which is inherent in the workings of capitalism and imperialism, is now threatening humanity with the “extreme violent rule of the whole world by one hegemonic imperialist country on a permanent basis...an absurd and unsustainable way of running the world order.”* This new age of U.S. imperialism will generate its own contradictions, amongst them attempts by other major powers to assert their influence, resorting to similar belligerent means, and all sorts of strategies by weaker states and non-state actors to engage in “asymmetric” forms of warfare. Given the unprecedented destructiveness of contemporary weapons, which are diffused ever more widely, the consequences for the population of the world could well be devastating beyond anything ever before witnessed. Rather than generating a new “Pax Americana” the United States may be paving the way to new global holocausts.



The U.S. occupation of Okinawa, in particular, creates space to understand imperialism – power structures in Japan perpetuate colonial dominance and act as testing grounds for militarized masculinity
Ginoza 5 (Ayano, September, of Women’s Studies at Washington State University “American Village as a Space of Militarism and Tourism: U.S. Militarism, Gender Hierarchy, Class, and Race in Okinawa”, MX)
Yumiko Mikanagi, a feminist political scientist, argues that this specific rape case is ascribed to “gendered power hierarchies in society and socially sanctioned masculinities based on violence against women” (98). In another word, places like this are spaces where violence against women is socially sanctioned, and where women paradoxically attain not only freedom from traditional Okinawan gender roles, but also freedom of sexual expressions that militarism relies on, exploits, and controls. Also, places like this is a militarizing term which trivializes the militarization process of the American Village and of how women’s bodies are sexualized by veiling power inequalities. Throughout the paper, I have tried to explore the problematic concept of natural and the process of naturalizing militarization in Okinawa with a case of the American Village. The space is a symbol for the anxieties and illusions of attaining higher class, and Japanese/ American life. This examination of the U.S. occupation of Okinawa helps us understand current imperialism. The imperialism is mediated through gender and race. It is also in pursuit of the natural, historical, and current practice of satisfying the military’s need for metaphorically subjugating sexually and racially, as though the military is the man 16 acting naturally. The American Village exists as the most powerful cultural construction that reshapes contemporary Okinawan women’s sexualities toward Okinawan nature and culture. To naturalize is to trivialize the dynamic structure of sociopolitical maneuvers. The landscape of the American Village for younger generations of Okinawans is an escape from the old tragic war history, a place where they fulfill their desire for a higher social class and cross racial lines by dating and marrying GIs. On the other hand, some GIs manipulate the space as a testing ground for their masculinity on Okinawan women. This indicates the perpetuation of colonial dominance in the American Village. In a society where power is highly valued and embraced as the highest pleasure, we tend to understand the power structure and hierarchy as natural and women as sexual. In order to fight against the militarization of the Okinawan natural and social landscape, and the exploitation of women’s sexuality, it is indispensable to analyze the dynamics of naturalizing and trivializing processes.



Thus we present the following plan: The United States federal government should withdraw all United States’ military presence from Japan




US military occupation in Okinawa breeds structural violence against women and children
Gaijinass News 06/12/10 (“Okinawa: Futenma MCAS controversy explained” http://gaijinass.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/okinawa-futenma-mcas-controversy-explained/,. MX)
Also mentioned in the WSJ’s drastically insufficient explanation was “a rape case”. This kind of language inflames people who know that in fact, there have been many such cases in Okinawa and will continue to be as long as The US military is there. Of course, the majority of violent crime in Okinawa is committed by the 400,000 Okinawan men within the designated age range effecting violent crime. The point to consider and remember is that the US military there is a guest and its continued presence a sore point, a point of continuous contention for anti-base activists so, it is literally necessary for all US forces on Okinawa to be perfect. This is something that likely will not occur. The case the WSJ was likely referring to, was the highly politicized and horribly shocking abduction, beating and gang rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan school girl by two US Marines and one Sailor in 1995. This was followed by additional rape incidents and charges in 1999, 2001, 2006 and 2008. The 1995 rape was also proceeded by horrific incident after horrific incident since the occupation of the island in 1945. Suzuyo Takasato of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, explains: Okinawa is a place where the armed forces have learnt how to kill and hurt people in close proximity to the local population for more than 60 years. This situation breeds a structural violence, rather than one that can be understood simply in terms of the crimes of individual soldiers. Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration in 1972 but the violence continued, and even became attempted rapes, as well as sexual abuse in public areas and even a case where a private house was invaded. The victims included a 10 year-old girl and a 14 year-old girl. These crimes particularly after 1995, garnered massive media attention and the consistency with which they occur and the US militaries immense shortcomings in properly dealing with them and the attention that accompany them have consistently and again, rightly, tarnished the USA’s image in Okinawa and the world.



Only a sustained inquiry into violence as a gendered phenomenon stops this structural violence which ranks alongside and subsumes global war and terrorism
MacKinnon 6, Catharine A., Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School, and Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, “Women's September 11th: Rethinking the International Law of Conflict,” 47 Harvard International Law Journal 1. Winter, 2006, EmiW
Here is the question: What will it take for violence against women, this daily war, this terrorism against women as women that goes on every day worldwide, this everyday, group-based, systematic threat to and crime against the peace, to receive a response in the structure and practice of international law anything approximate to the level of focus and determination inspired by the September 11th attacks? Assuming that women are a group, a collectivity though not a state, to ask this is not simply to contend that because violence against women is systemic and systematic (although it is), it should be addressed at this level of urgency. A lot of socially built-in death and mayhem is legally ignored. This parallel is closer than, for example, that with the death of the thousands of children who die from preventable diseases daily. **71** And the point is not a moral one: that this is bad and should be stopped. It is legal: Both September 11th and most violence against women are acts by formally nonstate actors against nonstate targets. It is analytical: Both are gender-based violence. And it is empirical: The body count is comparable in just one country in just one year. **72** This is not to argue that the only effective response to a war is a war. It is to ask, when will the international order stop regarding this very condition as peace and move all at once, with will, to do whatever is necessary to stop it, shaping the imperatives of the response to the imperatives of the problem? It is to ask why one matters, the other not. Why does the international order mobilize into a concerted force to face down the one, while to address the other squarely and urgently seems unthinkable? That the configuration of parties on September 11th failed to fit the prior structure and assumptions of the international legal order did not deter the response one whit. That actions like those taken since September 11th produce the structure and assumptions that become international law--customary international law in the making **73-**-is, for better and worse, closer to the truth. At this point, it is [*20] hard to avoid noticing that terrorism threatens the power of states, while male violence against women does not; state power might be said to be one organized form of it. Asked another way: Why did the condition of Afghan women, imprisoned in their clothes and homes for years, whipped if an ankle emerged, prohibited education or employment or political office or medical care on the basis of sex, **74** and subjected to who yet knows what other male violence, not rank with terrorism or rise on the international agenda to the level of a threatening conflict? Why were those who sounded the alarm about their treatment ignored? Why, with all the violations of international law and repeated Security Council resolutions, was their treatment alone not an act of war or a reason to intervene (including, yes, militarily) on any day up to September 10, 2001? To the suggestion that Afghan women should instead complain through international mechanisms, imagine the reaction to the suggestion that the United States, instead of responding with force to the acts of September 11th, should remove its reservation to Article 41 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and enter a declaration against Afghanistan. **75** Except to pacifists, some things justify armed intervention. How governments treat their own people, including women, has traditionally not been one of them. In the approach taken throughout the 1930s, for example, so long as Hitler confined his extermination of Jews to Germany, only Germany was generally regarded as properly concerned. It was after other countries were attacked that the rest of the world became involved. Is the approach to women's treatment still stuck back then, so that men inside each country are allowed to do to women what men cannot do to women of other countries? The record supports something close to that as an operative rule. Women are incinerated in dowry killings in India or living in fear that they could be any day. **76** They are stoned to death for sex outside marriage in some parts of South Asia and Africa. They are dead of botched abortions in some parts of Latin America and of genital mutilations in many parts of the world. Girls killed at birth or starved at an early age, or aborted as fetuses because they are female, are documented to number in the millions across Asia. **77** If foreign men did all this inside one country, would that create a state of war? (Come to think of it, what does that make sex tourism in Thailand?) **78** The nationality of the perpetrators has little to do with the injury to the women. While some of this is finally beginning to be seen as a violation of human rights, at least in theory, **79** none of it is thought to constitute a use of force in the legal sense. On its own, it has yet to create what is perceived as a humanitarian emergency or to justify military intervention. Peacetime laws and institutions, for their part, far from breaking down and failing to operate from time to time in this context as the law of armed conflict envisions, simply never have worked for women on a large scale anywhere. But instead of these unredressed atrocities being recognized as armed conflict for this reason, because the events happen with relative impunity all the time instead of just sometimes, or perhaps because they do not happen in front of television cameras all on one day, they raise little international concern. What does being done by domestic men inside each country make these acts in international terms? What do we call the conservatively counted one-in-four women raped, one-in-three sexually abused in childhood, one-in-four battered in their homes (including being crushed and burned), the uncounted prostituted women, systematically raped and thrown away, women of color and indigenous women the most victimized and the least responded to: the record of women living in non-metaphorical terror in the United States who have no effective relief at home? **80** Although it has been documented and analyzed by survivors and social scientists since 1970, **81** chronicled by international observers in the United States and elsewhere, **82** women's pervasive fear of violence has not even been noticed in the literature on terrorism, **83** far less [*22] produced an organized uprising by the international community or spurred rethinking of the structure, content, and priorities of international organizations brought to a crossroads, as September 11th has. **84** Comprehensive international strategies for world peace and security have never included sustained inquiry into violence itself as a gendered phenomenon. **85**


Militarization happens step by step, rejection at each step key
Ferguson and Mironesco 2008– Kathy E. Ferguson is a professor of gender studies at the University of Hawai’i, Monique Mironesco is a professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Hawaii (2008, Ch 16: Environmental Effects of U.S. Military Security, in Gender and Globalization in Asia and the Pacific . MX)
Militarism often seems to stand outside of globalization because wars and armies are generally activities of states (although nonstate terrorism complicates this understanding) and because violence seems to separate people and places, while global flows connect them. Yet global flows of violence, arms, soldiers, mercenar- ies, contractors, strategies, environmental destruction, and bellicose gendered imaginaries are part and parcel of globalization. Militarization, and by implica- tion demilitarization, is a complex process with a long history and many layers. Militarization happens step by step, through dense networks of microdecisions about how we live, work, and think as well as through obvious public policies, vi- olent colonial histories, and visible macrodecisions through which elites orga- nize the world and use its resources. Militarization also marks sites of struggle, contests over not just how to militarize but whether to do so.




Thus, the US military must be eliminated from Japan – the notion of security must be demilitarized and a gender perspective must be incorporated in foreign and security policy
Kirk, Cornwell, Okazawa-Rey, 1996 [FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS, “Women and the U.S. Military in East Asia” Written by Gwyn Kirk, (Kirk - Ph.D. is visiting faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Oregon (2009-10) and a founder member of Women for Genuine Security), Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey are founder-members of the East Asia-U.S. Women's Network Against U.S. Militarism. Rachel Cornwell is Program Assistant for the Demilitarization and Alternative Security Program of the Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace. Edited by Martha Honey (IPS) and Tom Barry (IRC). http://www.lightparty.com/Politics/ForeignPolicy/WomanInMilitary.html, EmiW]
Grassroots movements for national sovereignty and self-determination in East Asian countries have gained momentum in recent years. Women’s organizations play a key role in these movements and bring a gender perspective to protests against U.S. bases. Organizations in East Asia and the United States as well as international networks are developing alternatives to militarized security that address the security of women, children, and the physical environment. These advocates recommend a series of policy changes: The U.S. military should adopt international standards regarding women’s human rights and must take responsibility for violations committed by U.S. troops in East Asia. Military training should include substantial prestationing and early stationing education to sensitize all personnel to local customs and laws, gender issues, and violence prevention. Specific personnel in each unit should be responsible for monitoring the situation, maintaining accountability, and counseling. Severe sanctions must be imposed for human rights violations, and legal investigations should be conducted by the victim’s lawyers, by independent investigative and prosecuting bodies, or by both. All military personnel must be required to pass rigorous local driving tests and provide adequate insurance coverage for full compensation of damages done to local people in East Asia. Until this requirement can be implemented, the U.S. government must fully compensate local victims when accidents occur. SOFAs should be revised to protect host communities against crimes committed by U.S. troops and against environmental contamination from U.S. military operations. This includes the Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines, which should be revised to protect the human rights of women and children. Congress should pass the Violence Against Women Act II (HR 357/S 51). Title V has provisions that address U.S. military violence overseas. The U.S. military should support the research, counseling, and rehabilitation work of NGOs dealing with the negative effects of U.S. military operations. It should also encourage efforts to create employment opportunities for women besides military prostitution. The U.S. should take responsibility for Amerasian children. Congress should pass the American Asian Justice Act (HR 1128), an amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act (HR 1128) to facilitate the immigration of Amerasians born in the Philippines, or Japan who were fathered by U.S. citizens. Immigration procedures will need flexibility in documentation requirements. The U.S. military should investigate contamination of land and water and should undertake cleanup to acceptable standards. It should conduct research into the health effects of military toxics and should publicize its findings widely in accessible languages. Policy debates should broadly consider the question: What is genuine security for women and children living near U.S. bases? The notion of security needs to be demilitarized. Women’s voices and a gender perspective should be included in U.S. foreign and security policy discussions as a matter of routine. The U.S. should work toward the progressive reduction and eventual elimination of the U.S. military presence in East Asia by seeking alternatives to an exclusive military approach to national, regional, and global security.




The Okinawans struggle can speak to all forms of marginalization, its resistance will be connected to global struggles. Removing troops is a rallying cry against masculine frameworks in military institutions and develops new forms of international security
Tanji 2003 (Miyume, Ph.D, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Sophia University, Australian National University, and Murdoch University, "THE ENDURING MYTH OF AN OKINAWAN STRUGGLE: THE HISTORY AND TRAJECTORY OF A DIVERSE COMMUNITY OF PROJECT", http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/pubfiles/adt-MU20040510.152840/02Whole.pdf, pgs. 19-20,. MX)
Chapter 8 focuses on the peak and the downturn period following the rise of the third wave of 'Okinawan Struggle'. The contemporary community of protest is characterized by the co-existence of plural social movements. Differences and internal divisions within the community of protest, I argue, indicate the co-existence of qualitatively different kinds of social movements, although they are all related in some way to the inequality and marginalization related to the continuing dominance of US military bases in Okinawa. A distinctive contribution of this thesis is to understand the Okinawan protest experiences in the world that are studied more widely and profoundly, for example, the civil rights movement, anti-nuclear movements and women at Greenham Common. It contributes to opening the black box of 'Okinawan protesters' represented as a collected victim of an invincible US international security policy, of Tokyo's political economy of compensation, and marginalization of a minority group in Japan. It attempts to look at who the protestors are, what they want, how they strive to get it, and why. Overall, it contends that the myth of an 'Okinawan struggle' has survived, and will survive increasing diversification of protest actors and changing reform agendas in Okinawa because of its flexibility in being harnessed to a myriad of shapes and forms of campaigns against marginalization. This dissertation reveals that through the post-war period, the myth - described variously as an 'Okinawan struggle', the 'Okinawan Struggle', or the 'Okinawans' movement' - has become less rigid in the way it is incorporated into notions of collective identity or rationales for specific protests and organizations thereof. Yet it is precisely this capacity of the myth to speak to so many different interpretations of marginalization - involving different struggles and experiences at different periods in time - that means it is still a powerful and attractive one. It continues to be an effective source of inspiration and mobilization for divergent groups by providing strategies and ideas of protest derived from past experiences, and to be a source of self-expression. Another attraction of the idea of an 'Okinawan struggle' is its ability to provide a base for individual struggles, from which to connect with common experiences of marginalization taking place in other parts of the world, thus promoting developing networks with social movement actors in global civil society.


The discourse of potential danger fosters violence by preferring national security over human security, allowing sexual injustice to occur – the exclusion of feminist viewpoints in mainstream discourse maintains conflicts, only a revelation of marginalized subjects and their security can alter such cycles
Maria Stern, PhD, Goteborg University, Sweden, lecturer and research fellow in the Department of Peace and Development Studies at the University of Goteborg, Sweden. She teaches at the Department of Gender Studies at the University of Goteborg, currently directing a research project “Gender in the Armed Forces: Militarism and Peace-building in Congo-Kinshasa and Mozambique, 2006 [“Feminist Methodologies for International Relations” edited by Brooke A. Ackerly: Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, Maria Stern: Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Peace and Development Research, Goteborg University, and Jacqui True: Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Auskland, New Zealand, 2006, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pg. 196, EmiW]
Fourthly, discourses of danger and the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion that foster violence in conflicts over national securities and identities also resound in security discourses in marginalized sites (such as was expressed in the need for cohesion in the Mayan pueblo in the face of its enemies). Exploring how these potentially violent mechanisms work in these sites also discloses openings for possible resistance, such as the way certain narrators resisted the pinning down and circumscrib­ing of who they were and for what they struggle. For example, when speaking of her identity, one narrator, Manuela, said: "How are we going to construct something on the basis of exclusions and auto-exclusions, if on one side you exclude, and on the other you try to homogenize? It's a big contradiction . . . My work implies a permanent revision, a perman­ent study of myself and what I am doing." These lessons are relevant not only for marginalized subjects of security, but also for how to conceive of security and its concomitant subject positions more generally - even in terms of the traditional subject of the state.

DDI10-RT-Okinawa Policy Aff 1AC 7.26

1AC: Inherency
Contention One: Inherency

Desptite protests the US will attempt to build another base in Okinawa
(Chalmers Johnson, author of several books, including "Blowback" and "Dismantling the Empire: America's Last, Best Hope.", 5/6/10, LA Times ("Another battle of Okinawa", http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-johnson-20100506,0,4706050.storyavi))

The United States is on the verge of permanently damaging its alliance with Japan in a dispute over a military base in Okinawa. This island prefecture hosts three-quarters of all U.S. military facilities in Japan. Washington wants to build one more base there, in an ecologically sensitive area. The Okinawans vehemently oppose it, and tens of thousands gathered last month to protest the base. Tokyo is caught in the middle, and it looks as if Japan's prime minister has just caved in to the U.S. demands. In the globe-girdling array of overseas military bases that the United States has acquired since World War II — more than 700 in 130 countries — few have a sadder history than those we planted in Okinawa. In 1945, Japan was of course a defeated enemy and therefore given no say in where and how these bases would be distributed. On the main islands of Japan, we simply took over their military bases. But Okinawa was an independent kingdom until Japan annexed it in 1879, and the Japanese continue to regard it somewhat as the U.S. does Puerto Rico. The island was devastated in the last major battle in the Pacific, and the U.S. simply bulldozed the land it wanted, expropriated villagers or forcibly relocated them to Bolivia. From 1950 to 1953, the American bases in Okinawa were used to fight the Korean War, and from the 1960s until 1973, they were used during the Vietnam War. Not only did they serve as supply depots and airfields, but the bases were where soldiers went for rest and recreation, creating a subculture of bars, prostitutes and racism. Around several bases fights between black and white American soldiers were so frequent and deadly that separate areas were developed to cater to the two groups. The U.S. occupation of Japan ended with the peace treaty of 1952, but Okinawa remained a U.S. military colony until 1972. For 20 years, Okinawans were essentially stateless people, not entitled to either Japanese or U.S. passports or civil rights. Even. after Japan regained sovereignty over Okinawa, the American military retained control over what occurs on its numerous bases and over Okinawan airspace. Since 1972, the Japanese government and the American military have colluded in denying Okinawans much say over their future, but this has been slowly changing. In 1995, for example, there were huge demonstrations against the bases after two Marines and a sailor were charged with abducting and raping a 12-year-old girl. In 1996, the US. agreed that it would be willing to give back Futenma, which is entirely surrounded by the town of Ginowan, but only if the Japanese would build another base to replace it elsewhere on the island.


1AC: Environment 1/3
Contention 2 - Environment

Bases in Okinawa will destroy the natural habitat of ocean species--an important ecosystem and a biodiversity hotspot
(Jeff Shaw, founder and executive director of Oceanic Defense, Feb, 2005, E: The Environmental Magazine, <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_1_16/ai_n8694203/>. AP)

When Napoleon Bonaparte was told of the peace-loving Okinawan culture, whose values precluded maintaining a standing army, he scoffed. Surrounded by great and powerful neighbors, he opined, such a nation could not long survive.
Years later, the French despot's stance was vindicated. Today, Japanese and American military bases exist throughout Okinawa's subtropical ecosystems. For more than 100 years, Tokyo and Washington were content with domination of the land. Now, say environmental groups on both sides of the Pacific, the United States Marine Corps has come for the sea as well. Plans are in place for a first-of-its-kind sea-based heliport for the U.S. Marines. Built directly on top of a sensitive coral reef, the mammoth air station's runway will reach a mile into the Pacific Ocean. Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity says that the heliport would smother the life support system of multiple endangered species--among them the critically endangered dugong (manatee), sacred to locals. Only 50 of these genetically distinct creatures survive in the region, comprising the northernmost population. Along with five other environmental groups from Okinawa, mainland Japan and the United States, CBD has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Department of Defense seeking to stop the sea base. "Okinawa is sometimes called the 'Galapagos of the East' because of the incredible species diversity found there" says Galvin, a biologist. "Clearly, this is not the place for another military base." "The coral reef is going to be destroyed, the dugong habitat is going to be destroyed, and there's going to be pollution in what is a pretty clean body of water," predicts Jonathan Taylor, a professor at California State University-Fullerton. "There's also going to be tremendous noise pollution, which will affect wildlife inland." Besides the dugong, base construction could push other endangered animals over the brink, scientists and activists fear. "The Henoko Sea is very rich in biological diversity," says Makishi Yoshikazu of Okinawa Environmental Network, a local activist group at the forefront of a growing social movement on both sides of the Pacific. Three endangered species of sea turtle--the green, hawksbill and loggerhead--lay eggs on beaches near the base site. Reefs in Okinawa support more than 1,000 species of fish, attracting scuba divers from all around the world to the warm, clear waters. The variety of marine life divers can see here is second only to Australia's Great Barrier Reef Off the coast of Henoko village, where the new base is slated for construction, surveys recently uncovered 1,000 types of mollusks--including several that were previously undiscovered. Okinawan scuba guide Tanahara Seishu says Henoko's sea is critical dugong habitat. Based on his photographs of "dugong trenches"--fissures in the sea grass left by feeding animals he concludes, "Henoko is the main feeding ground of the dugong."


1AC: Environment 2/3
Oceans are key to human survival
(Robin Kundis Craig, Associate Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law, 2003, “Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection? Fishing and Coral Reef Marine Reserves in Florida and Hawaii,” McGeorge Law Review [34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155], Winter, Lexis-Nexis, AP)

Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost dead, n863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." n864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique.

Collapse of ecosystem will cause extinction – invisible threshold
(David N. Diner, Major in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the United States Army, 1994 “The Army And The Endangered Species Act: Who's Endangering Whom?,” Military Law Review [143 Mil. L. Rev. 161], Winter, Lexis-Nexis, AP)

4. Biological Diversity. – The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. 77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. 78 [*173] Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." 79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, 80 mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.

1AC: Environment 3/3
Removing bases will halt environmental degradation – sturggles are intertwined
(Jonathan Taylor, Ph.D Assistant Professor in Geography Department at California State University, Fullerton, 2003 (latest reference date), “Anti-Military and Environmental Movements in Okinawa” <http://www.uky.edu/~ppkaran/conference/Anti-Military%20and%20Environmental%20Movements%20in%20Okinawa.pdf>. AP)

II. Environmental Impacts of the U.S. Bases It goes without saying that military bases produced environmental degradation of various kinds. In the case of Okinawa, where such large proportion of the surface area of the main island is covered with bases, the bases have had a number of direct environmental impacts. However, they have also indirectly affected Okinawa’s environment through their effects upon its political economy, and thus, political ecology. Direct impacts have included toxic dumping, water pollution, noise pollution, land degradation and soil erosion. Indirectly, the bases have contributed to Okinawa’s increasing economic dependence on construction and public works, the damming of Okinawan rivers and the building of large-scale dams, and other actions linked to the peculiar political economy which Okinawa first developed under U.S. occupation. Moreover the bases have taken up valuable farm and urban land, increasing pressures both on marginal uplands as well as on the densely populated urban sprawl of southern Okinawa.3 Land degradation is an especially serious problem. On one of the large bases, the Central Training Area, in Okinawa’s north there has been extensive firing of artillery shells. This has led to deforestation, frequent fires, vegetative denudation, and soil erosion. In addition, the area is now covered with unexploded ordnance. This area may well be the worst case of direct environmental degradation caused by the U.S. military in Okinawa, however cleanup of the area is not the responsibility of the U.S, and the future status of the area has not been discussed by the Japanese and US governments. On the opposite extreme though is the other large military base in the North, now called the Jungle Warfare Training Center. This area is extremely undeveloped, with only a few facilities, one main road, and a few small helipads. The main use of this area is for jungle warfare training, which involves neither the firing of live bullets nor the use of many vehicles. There therefore have been extremely minimal environmental impacts on this area. In essence, this base is the de facto largest semi-wilderness area in Okinawa, and certainly by far the largest contiguous protected area in the Ryukyu Islands. Recent surveys have found scores of endangered endemic species which are found only in this area.4 Meanwhile, in similar ecological areas outside of the base, the forests are being cut and the land cleared. This so-called land improvement is supposed to result in increased agriculture land but in reality most fields lie barren. A cynic might refer to these as social welfare projects for Okinawan contractors. In addition, roads with various steep cuts have been built into the forest, expanding human use of it. The roads are virtually unused but the damage remains. These activities have now imperiled the Yanbaru region to the extent that numerous Okinawan NGOs have lobbied for its benefit. Overall, Okinawa’s environmental problems are significant. They include deforestation, soil erosion, coral reef degradation, the depletion of fisheries, ground water depletion, ground water pollution, hazardous waste and toxic dumping, riverine pollution and siltation, land salinization, the destruction of wetlands and mangroves, coastal erosion, marine pollution, and the depletion of biological diversity. Okinawa suffers especially from a shortage of water, surface water pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, and the degradation of coral environments. All of its terrestrial and aquatic environments are endangered, some catastrophically so. In addition, environmental problems associated with quality of life issues include noise pollution and destruction of the scenic environment. Despite this, Okinawa has never had an environmental movement to rival that of the mainland. This can be attributed to a number of causes, but one is the fact that environmental problems in Okinawa have seldom been associated with immediate hazards to human health. This is ultimately the case because the main culprit in Japan’s toxic crises, industry, has a disproportionately small presence in Okinawa. Thus the main catalyst for environmental grassroots movements in Japan has largely been missing from Okinawa. However, Okinawa does have an obvious target of protest, which is less common than the rest of Japan – the U.S. bases. Because of this, anti-military and environmental groups in Okinawa have a symbiotic relationship somewhat different to that elsewhere in Japan. Regardless of the reality of which factors are the main factors causing environmental degradation in Okinawa, for many Okinawans, struggles to protect the environment and struggles to remove the bases or prevent their expansion are inextricably intertwined.






1AC: China Balancing Advantage (1/6)
Advantage Two: China

China is concerned that the US-Japan security alliance is a threat to its power—this causes China to develop an aggressive military
(Paul J Smith, Professor of History and East Asian Studies, Bryn Mawr, Winter 20**09**.Asian Affairs, an American Review. Washington: Vol. 35, Iss. 4; pg. 230, 27 pgs http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=07-19-2015&FMT=7&DID=1658373541&RQT=309&cfc=1)

From China's perspective, the U.S.-Japan alliance has become a source of increasing concern, particularly since the end of the Cold War. In 1999, following the adoption of new defense guidelines in Japan, Jiang Lifeng, a Chinese scholar associated with a government-affiliated think tank, noted that the "enhanced security alliance between the United States and Japan will leave [China] with no choice but to improve its weapons and increase its military strength."96 Similarly, in 2004, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated that "[China is] deeply concerned with the great changes of Japan's military defense strategy and its possible impact."97 Apart from general concerns about Japan's increasing military capacity via its alliance with the United States, China seems to be most concerned about two key issues. First, China is anxious about Japan's decision to become more intimately tied to U.S. theater missile defense plans. This concern links back to discussions between Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro and President Bill Clinton prior to passage of the new guideline bills by the Japanese Diet in 1999, regarding the need for the two countries to explore ways to counter North Korea's development of ballistic missiles.98 North Korea's firing a Taepodong missile over Japan in 1998 already galvanized Japanese public support for such an undertaking. In December 2003, Koizumi announced that Japan would officially work with the United States to jointly develop and deploy missile defense capabilities to counter threats from the region. This was a profoundly important decision, particularly as many analysts consider this "the most robust form of bilateral cooperation" between the United States and Japan.99 Among other things, such cooperation has led to extensive defense industry integration and technological exchange; moreover, from a strategic point of view, this arrangement ties Japan to the larger U.S. theater missile-defense architecture.100 The second concern for China is the fear that Japan could once again remilitarize and become a "normal" country, with military power commensurate with its economic strength. Japan's decision to upgrade its defense agency to ministry status and other initiatives, such as attempts to revise the pacifist Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, have only served to inflame such fears. Among certain Chinese analysts, the push for "normal" power status embodies a number of sinister-often militaristic-motivations.101 When the director-general of Japan's Defense Agency reportedly remarked in 2006 that the U.S.-Japan security alliance was intended to "check China and prepare for any contingency concerning the Taiwan Strait," Chinese Foreign Ministry official Qin Gang reacted harshly, arguing that the U.S.-Japan military alliance was established during the Cold War and was intended to be "limited to a bilateral domain."102 The U.S.-Japan security alliance, originally the product of Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, has clearly evolved into a much more robust alliance. Not surprisingly, Beijing has reacted with increasing alarm at signs that the alliance is directed toward China, notwithstanding assurances to the contrary. U.S. policy pronouncements-articulating Japan as part of a concert of democracies directed against China-only fan the flames of concern that the U.S.-Japan security alliance has a new purpose: containing China.103 Thus, what Beijing once viewed as a benign military structure is increasingly being perceived as something sinister, directed against China's interests.


1AC: China Balancing Advantage (2/6)
Despite the perception of a peaceful foreign policy—China will inevitably revert back to aggression and militarization absent US withdrawal
(Major Jin H. Pak, U.S. Army, has taught international relations and Northeast Asia politics at USMA, "China's Pragmatic Rise and U.S. Interests in East Asia", December 2007, http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume6/january_2008/1_08_3.html)

Is Chinese foreign policy undergoing a profound change? During most of the past five decades of Communist rule, China's foreign policy reflected a strong tendency toward bilateral relations and a readiness, if not a predilection, to use force to assert its will. Even as recently as the mid-1990s, China used military power to bolster its claims in the South China Sea and to threaten political stability in Taiwan. However, while this sort of assertive use of power still remains in China's quiver of foreign policy options, Chinese diplomacy has become dramatically more prevalent around the globe, especially in East Asia. For instance, China was active in forming the Association of Southeast Asian Nations +3 (ASEAN +3) forum, which includes the ten ASEAN member countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia) plus China, Japan, and South Korea. The forum was created to prevent a repeat of the 1997 financial crisis that devastated East Asian economies, but it now increasingly deals with issues tied to security. ASEAN +3 recently participated in talks concerning the possible development of an East Asian Community (EAC), which would include the ASEAN +3 countries and India, Australia, and New Zealand. China has also been active in multilateral diplomacy in Northeast Asia. The nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula prompted the creation of the Six-Party Talks, with China playing an important role in the negotiations among North Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. The talks gave China a chance to assume a good deal of responsibility for Northeast Asian affairs and the maintenance of a stable Korean peninsula. They also provided a venue for China to improve its relations with the United States, Russia, and especially South Korea. All of these developments point to China's increased use of cooperative diplomacy, but does this shift in attitude portend a fundamental, lasting change in Chinese foreign policy? I believe that it does not. China's strategic outlook has always featured a pragmatic attitude about using military force to attain results. Its show of restraint now is a symptom of the environment its leaders face. Simply put, diplomacy and restraint have practical advantages for China's leaders. China has long understood that change is inevitable. This outlook has influenced China's grand strategy, which has four goals: maintaining domestic stability, ensuring territorial integrity, developing a strong military, and increasing geopolitical influence. China has prudently perceived the post-Cold War era as a window of opportunity to make gains toward its four goals by using "soft-power" diplomacy.1 This window opens wider the longer the United States remains enmeshed in the Middle East and Central Asia. In addition, China has come to view its participation in multinational organizations as an enabler not only for pursuing greater geopolitical influence, but also for countering U.S. influence. With this in mind, China is participating in efforts to develop the aforementioned EAC. Unlike the existing ASEAN Regional Forum, the EAC will include only countries from East and South Asia. By acting as a responsible, cooperative stakeholder in the region, China also aims to re-shape its old image as a potential military threat. The old image dominated many Asian states' thinking about China during the Cold War, driving them to seek alliances with the United States. By adopting a more peaceful image, China is seeking to change these alliances. From the perspective of U.S. interests, the greatest strategic challenge in East Asia is how to respond to increasing Chinese influence. The best U.S. strategy should entail improvement of its existing system of bilateral alliances and focusing diplomatic efforts toward resolving major regional security issues. The most pressing issues include limiting Chinese influence to ensure continued economic access, deterring conflict, and preventing a strategic arms race in the region. Such efforts will enable the United States to maintain its strategic relevance in the region and cultivate a positive image as the better alternative, the "hegemon of choice" for East Asian states.


1AC: China Balancing Advantage (3/6)
Chinese militarization against US presence causes it to abandon its peaceful rise—this increases the risk of a US-China conflict over Taiwan
(Robert J. Art, Christian A. Herter Professor of International Relations at Brandeis University, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI program, and a Research Associate at Harvard University's John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, "Correspondence: Striking the Balance", 2006, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/international_security/v030/30.3art.htmlavi)

Moreover, it is wrong to dismiss China's military balancing against the United States on the grounds that it should be much greater than it is if the United States actually posed a direct threat, as Lieber and Alexander argue (p. 122). Although China is devoting [End Page 179] a growing percentage of its gross domestic product to its military, it makes little sense to engage in a full-court military press against the United States at the current moment. For now, China needs access to the U.S. market and to U.S. direct foreign investment if it is to continue its rapid economic growth. Diverting huge sums to defense so as to whittle the U.S. military advantage down to a manageable size would undercut its "peaceful rise" strategy and harm the economic growth that will enable it one day, should it so choose, to contest the United States' global military might.10 China is balancing enough to complicate the United States' defense of Taiwan should a war occur and to be better able to defend its own territory in such a war, and it can be expected to continue to do so as long as the Taiwan issue remains unresolved.11 For the longer term, China will continue to improve its military position vis-à-vis the United States in preparation for the eventuality that other conflictual issues will arise between them.12


1AC: China Balancing Advantage (4/6)
Two Impacts:
First, US-China Conflict over Taiwan causes Extinction
(Ching Cheong– East Asia Correspondent, The Straits Times, “No one gains in war over Taiwan,” 6-25-2K, Lexis-Nexis Universe))

A cross-strait conflict, even at the lowest end of the intensity scale, will suffice to truncate, if not to reverse, the steep GNP growth trends of the past few years. Other than the quantifiable losses from disrupted trade flows, there is also the longer-term damage to consider. For example, it took Taiwan almost three decades to establish itself as the third largest producer of information technology (IT) products in the world. It is now the island's single largest foreign exchange earner. The Sept 21 earthquake last year demonstrated the risk involved in Taiwan's dependence on the IT industry. A few days of power blackouts disrupted chip-manufacturing operations on the island, which in turn sent prices of these components soaring worldwide. Not surprisingly, a scramble followed for alternative sources of supply. A blockade lasting three months will devastate the industry in Taiwan. Similarly, it has taken China more than two decades to establish itself as the second largest recipient of private direct investment. In recent years, such investment has amounted to more than 20 per cent of China's total capital formation. A capital outflow will follow if there is trouble across the strait. Other than China and Taiwan, Japan's economy is likely to be hurt too if the blockade disrupts its "life-line" -the sea lane through which flows its supplies of oil and other commodities. Though no physical loss will be incurred, the blockade will force up prices across the board as Japan is so dependent on this sea lane. The Asean region stands to gain in the short run. Those with strong IT industries, like Singapore and Malaysia, will carve a big slice from what was previously Taiwan's share. Similarly, as investment flees China, the Asean countries might be able to intercept this flow and benefit thereby. Politically, the blockade is likely to provoke Sino-phobia in the region. Japan's rightwing forces will seize this golden opportunity to demand a revision of the post-war Constitution prohibiting its rearmament. Asean countries having territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea will beef up their defence budgets. Ethnic Chinese population in these countries may have to contend with increased suspicion or worse as Sino-phobia rises. The US stands to gain. So long as its stays on the sidelines, it does not lose the Chinese market. At the same time its defence industry gains as countries in the region start stocking up on arms in anticipation of trouble. DESTROYING THE TAIWAN MILITARY THE medium intensity scenario postulates a situation in which Beijing wages a war against Taiwan. The objective here is to obliterate its military capability which is seen as underpinning its independence movement. The outcome: Taiwan is brought to its knees but only after widespread death and destruction have been inflicted on the island and the coastal provinces of China. In this scenario, the US while feeling obliged to support Taiwan militarily is not party to a full-scale war with China. Washington's primary concern would be to keep it to a "limited war" to prevent hostilities from spinning out of control. Limited though it may be, the war will set back the economies of China and Taiwan by at least two to three decades. All the short-term gains enjoyed by the Asean countries in the low-intensity scenario will be nullified as the conflict intensifies. In this medium-intensity scenario, no one gains. Politically, all countries are forced to take sides. This decision is particularly hard to make in those countries having a sizeable ethnic-Chinese population. THE DOOMSDAY SCENARIO THE high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into a full-scale war between the US and China. If Washington were to conclude that splitting China would better serve its national interests, then a full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale would embroil other countries far and near and -horror of horrors -raise the possibility of a nuclear war. Beijing has already told the US and Japan privately that it considers any country providing bases and logistics support to any US forces attacking China as belligerent parties open to its retaliation. In the region, this means South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and, to a lesser extent, Singapore. If China were to retaliate, east Asia will be set on fire. And the conflagration may not end there as opportunistic powers elsewhere may try to overturn the existing world order. With the US distracted, Russia may seek to redefine Europe's political landscape. The balance of power in the Middle East may be similarly upset by the likes of Iraq. In south Asia, hostilities between India and Pakistan, each armed with its own nuclear arsenal, could enter a new and dangerous phase. Will a full-scale Sino-US war lead to a nuclear war? According to General Matthew Ridgeway, commander of the US Eighth Army which fought against the Chinese in the Korean War, the US had at the time thought of using nuclear weapons against China to save the US from military defeat. In his book The Korean War, a personal account of the military and political aspects of the conflict and its implications on future US foreign policy, Gen Ridgeway said that US was confronted with two choices in Korea -truce or a broadened war, which could have led to the use of nuclear weapons. If the US had to resort to nuclear weaponry to defeat China long before the latter acquired a similar capability, there is little hope of winning a war against China 50 years later, short of using nuclear weapons. The US estimates that China possesses about 20 nuclear warheads that can destroy major American cities. Beijing also seems prepared to go for the nuclear option. A Chinese military officer disclosed recently that Beijing was considering a review of its "non first use" principle regarding nuclear weapons. Major-General Pan Zhangqiang, president of the military-funded Institute for Strategic Studies, told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington that although the government still abided by that principle, there were strong pressures from the military to drop it. He said military leaders considered the use of nuclear weapons mandatory if
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the country risked dismemberment as a result of foreign intervention. Gen Ridgeway said that should that come to pass, we would see the destruction of civilisation. There would be no victors in such a war. While the prospect of a nuclear Armaggedon over Taiwan might seem inconceivable, it cannot be ruled out entirely, for China puts sovereignty above everything else.

1AC: China Balancing Advantage (5/6)
Second, Preventing China’s aggression rise is key to global democracy
(Edward Friedman, Professor of Political Science at. U. Wisconsin, Dissent, “China: A Threat to or Threatened by Democracy?” Winter 2009, http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1318))

THESE CCP antidemocratic policies are significant. Democratization tends to occur regionally—for example, after 1974–1975 in Southern Europe, subsequently in Latin America, in the late 1980s in East Asia (the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan), and after November 1989 in Eastern and Central Europe. The CCP regime, in contrast, aims to create an Asian region where its authoritarian ruling groups are unchallenged, in which regional institutions are inoculated against democratization. China’s successes in that direction make it hard to imagine Asia, in any foreseeable future, becoming defined by a democratic ethos that makes authoritarian China seem the odd nation out. An exception is democratic Taiwan. Starting in the 1990s, Beijing has portrayed Taiwan as a trouble-making polity and a chaotic society. But the basic interests of China’s economic modernizers are to move as quickly as possible into advanced technology and Information Technology (IT). This requires improving economic relations with Taiwan, a world leader in IT. Good relations between Beijing and Taipei would increase exchanges of students, tourists, families, and entrepreneurs across the Taiwan Strait. Democratic Taiwan, over time, could come to seem to Chinese victims of a repressive, greedy, corrupt, and arbitrary political system to be China’s better future. If Singapore, in a post–Lee Kuan Yew era, would then democratize, that, too, could help make democracy seem a natural regional alternative to politically conscious Chinese. For the CCP is trying to solve its governance problems, in part, by evolving into a Singapore-type authoritarianism, a technocratic, professional, minimally corrupt, minimally cruel, one-party, administrative state. In sum, although the CCP’s foreign policy works against the spread of democracy, there are some ways in which regional forces could yet initiate a regional democratization. The future is contingent on unknowable factors. One key is Indonesia. There are political forces in Jakarta that oppose Beijing’s efforts in Southeast Asia to roll back the advance of democracy. If Indonesia were to succeed, and if nations in South Asia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, were also to democratize, it is possible to imagine politically conscious Chinese seeking to ride a wave of regional democratization, especially if Taiwan and Singapore were both admirable democratic alternatives. Although regional factors make all this unlikely, enough wild cards are in play that China’s democratization is not impossible. HAVING EXAMINED regional forces, we must then ask about the political possibilities inherent in the way economic forces create new social groups that interact with the different interests of state institutions. First, China’s growth patterns have polarized the division of wealth such that China may soon surpass Brazil as the most unequal (but stable) major country in the world. All students of democratic transitions agree that great economic inequality makes ruling groups resistant to a democratization that they believe would put their ill-gotten gains at risk. This consensus hypothesis, that democratic transitions are more likely where economic polarization is limited, is formalized in a rational-choice model in Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson’s Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Too much economic inequality is a huge obstacle blocking a democratic transition. The rising urban middle classes prefer to be defended by the authoritarian state rather than risk their status and fortunes in a democratic vote, where the majority is imagined as poor, rural, and vengeful against economic winners, imagined as an undeserving and traitorous upper stratum. To be sure, there are democratic tendencies that result from the move from collective farming to household agriculture and from the rise of property rights, a new middle class, literacy, wealth, and
so on—as Seymour Martin Lipset long ago argued. But an adaptable and resilient CCP regime that continues to deliver rapid economic growth is not going to be abandoned by rising classes worried about vengeance by the losers in a polarized society. Still, China is combining rapid industrialization with a climb into postmodern service and high-technology-based growth in which industrial workers can seem a dying breed, an albatross to further growth. Core areas of industrialization are beginning to hollow out. It is possible to imagine the losers from China’s continuing rapid growth—for example, sixty million laid-off former State Owned Enterprise (SOE) workers—turning against the regime. Should a global financial shock cause China to lose its export markets, instability might threaten the regime. As Haleb’s Black Swan suggests, a full exploration of democratic possibilities should look into all the wild-card factors. The regime’s economic reformers, however, could be portrayed as having sold the nation’s better future to Western imperialism if Chinese lost their jobs because of an economic virus spreading from New York and London to Shanghai. And then, opponents of the government would not back a move to democracy. The West would be seen as a fount of evil, and then both the people and the ruling groups might choose a transition to a more chauvinistic and militarist order that would renounce China’s global openness as a betrayal of the nation’s essence. History suggests that left nationalists within the regime, who largely control the security and propaganda apparatuses, would be militantly against any opening to democracy. Such a neofascist ruling coalition might turn to military adventures or close China’s doors in order to appeal to nativists—in ways, however, that would lose China the sources of continuing high growth. That is, neofascist hardliners might implement policies that would alienate many people in China and in Asia, and thereby create a counterforce that might find democracy attractive. But such imaginings rest too much on long-term speculations about concatenating factors leading to distant futures. Such meanderings of the mind should not be confused with confident predictions about a democratic outcome. Still, it is clear that much depends on how the post-Mao right-authoritarian populist system relates to social contradictions. The CCP is moving toward presidential succession rules similar to what Mexico institutionalized in its earlier era of a one-party dominant presidential populism. Mexico had a one-term president for six years who chose his successor; China has a president who serves two five-year terms and chooses his successor at the close of the first. Chinese analysts fear that as economic stagnation, corruption, and debt delegitimated
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Mexico’s presidential populism, so the same could happen with China. The danger is dubbed Latin Americanization. Anxious analysts worry about the entrenchment of greedy local interests that resist the many adaptations required for the continuing rapid growth that wins legitimacy and stability for the regime. Ever less charismatic and weaker presidents in China will lack the clout to defeat the vested interests who will act much as landed elites acted in the days of the ancien régime to block the changes required for economic growth. Resultant stagnation would create a regime crisis, as occurred in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, leading there to a wave of military coups, but also, in the 1980s, to a democratic opening in Mexico—because, among other things, Mexico uniquely abutted the United States and wished to benefit from greater access to the U.S. market. China has no similarly large and attractive democratic neighbor, unless globalization so reduces distance that the two sides of the Pacific seem no further apart than the English Channel did in the eighteenth century. This is a real possibility in our age of transportation and communication revolutions. The internal Chinese analysis of a future crisis brought on by Latin Americanization should be treated seriously. But East Asian economic growth seems to me to be of a different order than Latin America’s. Region is decisive. In addition, household agriculture and physical mobility in China make it likely that Kuznets curve factors, in which the economic gap narrows after an initial widening as a country develops, will operate in China in the future. That is, the forces of polarization will be reversed. Chinese household agriculture is very different from the world of the landed elites that emerged out of slave-plantation Latin America. Perhaps there will turn out to be truth to the analogy of a feudal-like CCP-type system rooted in Russian czarist feudal institutions with the repressed labor relations of plantation slavery and its aftermath. My own hunch, however, is that anxiety about Latin Americanization in China is an indicator that the regime remains preemptive, flexible, and responsive to threats and will, therefore, head off dangers to the regime, nipping them in the bud. It is a resilient regime, not a fragile one. ALTHOUGH WE may be seeing through a glass darkly to try to locate forces of regime instability or democratization in China, what is clear is how to analyze the forces at work that will decide whether it is more or less likely that China will democratize. An analyst should try to understand how the forces of region, of groups and interests fostered by the economic moment globally and at home, and of the state, comprehended in terms of the strength and weakness of its diverse and conflicting elements, interact. My own reading of this interaction is that democracy is not impossible, but that a far more likely outcome is either continuity, that is, evolutionary change toward a dominant-party populist presidentialism imagining itself as becoming more like authoritarian Singapore, or a transition in a more chauvinistic and militaristic direction. China is not likely to democratize in any immediate future, but it is not inconceivable. China is a superpower probing, pushing, and pulling the world in its authoritarian direction. Japan is out of touch in imagining a superior Japan leading China into an East Asian Community, with Japan showing China the way in everything from environmentalism to shared high standards of living. For Confucian China, China is the core, apex, and leader of an Asian community. The CCP intends for authoritarian China to establish itself as a global pole. China will similarly experience it as a threatening American arrogance for the U.S. government to assume that an incredibly successful China, imagining itself as a moral global pole leading humanity in a better direction, needs to be saved by American missionaries of democracy. The democracies might be able to promote an end to systemic abuses of human rights in China, but Americans will not be heard in Chinese ruling circles unless they abandon a democratization agenda in which change for the better in China presupposes ending the leadership role of the CCP. Appeasement is the price of long-term good relations. The alternatives seem too costly. There is no other long-lasting basis for trustful cooperation with the government in Beijing than to accept the regime’s legitimacy. CCP ruling groups imagine foreign democracy-promotion as a threat to China’s—and the world’s—better future, identified, of course, as at
one with the interests of CCP ruling groups. Can the world afford not to treat China as the superpower it is? The CCP imagines a chaotic and war-prone world disorder of American-led democracy-promotion being replaced by a beneficent Chinese world order of authoritarian growth with stability. There may be far less of a challenge to China from democracy than there is a challenge to democracy from China. Democracy-promoter Larry Diamond concludes in his recent book The Spirit of Democracy that democracy is in trouble across the world because of the rise of China, an authoritarian superpower that has the economic clout to back and bail out authoritarian regimes around the globe. “Singapore . . . could foreshadow a resilient form of capitalist-authoritarianism by China, Vietnam, and elsewhere in Asia,” which delivers “booming development, political stability, low levels of corruption, affordable housing, and a secure pension system.” Joined by ever richer and more influential petro powers leveraging the enormous wealth of Sovereign Investment Funds, “Asia will determine the fate of democracy,” at least in the foreseeable future. Authoritarian China, joined by its authoritarian friends, is well on the way to defeating the global forces of democracy.


1AC: China Balancing Advantage (6/6)
Democracy prevents extinction.
(Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow – Hoover Institution, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990s”, December 1995, http://www.carnegie.org//sub/pubs/deadly/dia95_01.html))

This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness.

Withdrawal from Okinawa sends a signal to China that US presence is not a threat—this causes China to pursue a peaceful rise and stabilize the region
(Doug Bandow is the Robert A. Taft Fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance, advisor to Campaign for Liberty, and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He is also a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, "Engaging China to Maintain Peace in East Asia", CATO Institute, 5/25/10, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11845)

While the U.S. remains involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, East Asia contains the seeds of potentially bigger conflicts. China holds the key to maintaining regional peace. For instance, the Republic of Korea is imposing economic sanctions on North Korea after the latter sank a South Korean naval vessel. A military response could set off a retaliatory spiral leading to war. With 27,000 troops stationed on the Korean peninsula, Washington could not easily stay out of any conflict. Less obvious but potentially more serious is the future status of Taiwan. The People's Republic of China insists that the island, separated from the mainland by Japanese occupation and civil war, return to Beijing's authority. The Taiwanese people are never likely to support control by the PRC. Although China-Taiwan relations have improved with a new government in Taipei, Beijing may grow impatient as its power increases and be tempted to substitute coercion for negotiation. However, Washington has implicitly guaranteed Taipei's security, which could lead to a serious military confrontation between the U.S. and China. How to maintain the peace in East Asia? Washington must engage the PRC on both issues. America's relationship with Beijing will have a critical impact on the development of the 21st century. Disagreements are inevitable; conflict is not. China is determined to take an increasingly important international role. It is entitled to do so. However, it should equally commit to acting responsibly. As the PRC grows economically, expands its military, and gains diplomatic influence, it will be able to greatly influence international events, especially in East Asia. If it does so for good rather than ill, its neighbors will be less likely to fear the emerging superpower. Most important, responsible Chinese policy will diminish the potential for military confrontation between Beijing and Asian states as well as the U.S. In return, Washington should welcome China into the global leadership circle if its rise remains peaceful and responsible. American analysts have expressed concern about a Chinese military build-up intended to prevent U.S. intervention along the PRC's border. But the U.S. cannot expect other states to accept American dominance forever. Any American attempt to contain Beijing is likely to spark — predictably — a hostile response from China. Instead, Washington policymakers should prepare for a world in which reciprocity replaces diktat. The U.S. could encourage Chinese responsibility by adopting policies that highlight the importance of the PRC's role in promoting regional peace and stability. Such an approach is most needed to deal with the Korean peninsula and Taiwan. For instance, Beijing could play a critical role in restraining and ultimately transforming the North. So far the PRC has declined to apply significant pressure on its long-time ally. In fact, North Korea's Kim Jong-il recently visited China, presumably in pursuit of additional economic aid and investment. His quid pro quo might have been a professed willingness to return to the Six-Party nuclear talks. But few analysts believe there is much chance of a nuclear deal whether or not these negotiations proceed — and almost certainly no chance unless the PRC is prepared to get tough with the North, including threatening to cut off generous food and energy shipments. To encourage Beijing, Washington should suggest that China would share the nightmare if an unstable North Korea expands its nuclear arsenal. The North's nuclear program would yield concern even in the best of cases. But the so-called Democratic People's Republic of Korea is no best case. The regime started a war in 1950 and engaged in terrorism into the 1980s. Pyongyang has cheerfully sold weapons to all comers. Worse, today it appears to be in the midst of an uncertain leadership transition. If North Korean forces sank the South Korean vessel, then either Kim Jong-il is ready to risk war or has lost control of the military, which is ready to risk war. The Obama administration should indicate to the
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PRC that Washington will face sustained pressure to take military action against the North — which obviously would not
be in Beijing's interest. Should the DPRK amass a nuclear arsenal, the U.S. would have no more desire than China to be in the middle of a messy geopolitical confrontation, especially one that could go nuclear. Thus, Washington would not be inclined to block decisions by the ROK and Japan to create countervailing nuclear arsenals. Just as the prospect of a North Korean bomb worries the U.S., the possibility of a Japanese nuclear capacity would unsettle the PRC. Should China take the tough, even risky (from its standpoint) steps necessary to moderate or transform Pyongyang, Washington should promise to reciprocate. The DPRK poses the greatest threat to regional peace and security. Eliminate it, and eliminate the principal justification for a U.S. military presence in East Asia. Most obvious would be a promise not to maintain American bases or troops in the Korean peninsula, whether united or divided. Pulling back units from Japan would also be warranted. The issue of Taiwan requires Chinese forbearance rather than action. A Chinese commitment to peaceful resolution of Taiwan's status would eliminate the geopolitical dispute most likely to set America and Beijing at military odds. The PRC already has triumphed on the international stage since most nations, and all major countries, recognize China over Taiwan. Winning formal control over Taipei would offer Beijing symbolic rather than practical benefits. Moreover, China's economy has surpassed that of Taiwan and today benefits enormously from Taiwanese investment. The growing economic interdependence across the Taiwan Strait also diminishes the importance of Taipei's de facto political independence. The two peoples if not the two states are growing increasingly interrelated. The lack of political control over 23 million people may pose a nationalistic affront to the PRC, but it is one Beijing should bear to promote its larger objective of attaining global leadership. In contrast, using military force — whether intimidation, blockade, or invasion — against the island would generate costs far out of proportion to any possible gains in terms of prestige. A hostile regional and Western response would be inevitable. China's neighbors certainly would see the PRC's rise as anything but peaceful. Any coercive act would be a powerful impetus for Japan to create a larger military and adopt a more aggressive foreign policy. The greatest risk would be a confrontation with the U.S. Economic retaliation would be certain and military intervention possible. Given the length and strength of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, no American administration could easily stand by if the PRC used force against Taipei. Chinese aggression also would validate the warnings of American hawks, who are pressing for ever higher military outlays despite America's dearth of serious adversaries. Even Europe would see Beijing as a threatening actor, rather as major European powers came to view Wilhelmine Germany, and likely would retaliate economically. Washington should press the PRC to take two simple steps: renounce the use of force to resolve Taiwan's status and remove missiles now targeting the island. In return, Taiwan should indicate that it will not ally with any party or allow other powers to use bases against the PRC. The U.S. should explain that it has no intention of intervening militarily against China, maintaining a military alliance with Taiwan, or using military facilities on the island. Washington also should pull back other military units stationed nearby, such as the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force on Okinawa. Demonstrating its pacific intent would enable the PRC to defuse proposals to revamp America's alliances with South Korea and Japan to deal with other contingencies — meaning China. Although Beijing's rise has been steady, its continued rise will be smoother if achieved in cooperation with its neighbors and without hostility from them or America. The PRC's own actions will be the most important factor in determining other nations' reactions.


1AC: Plan Text

Thus the Plan: The United States federal government should withdraw the United States federal government’s military bases from the Okinawa prefecture of Japan.

1AC: Solvency (1/2)
Contention 4: Solvency

The plan allows Japan to cooperate with other countries to construct a new security structure in East Asia--that solves stability and Chinese aggression
(Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties, June 18th 2010, Cato Institute, Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11928)

North Korea's military abilities remain uncertain and its aggressive intentions remain unpredictable. Prime Minister Hatoyama cited "the current situation in the Korean peninsula" as a reason to maintain the base on Okinawa. Moreover, China's power is growing. So far Beijing has been assertive rather than aggressive, but increasingly seems willing to contest islands claimed by both nations. The best way to keep the competition peaceful is for Tokyo to be able to protect itself. Of course, several of Japan's neighbors, along with some Americans, remain nervous about any Japanese military activity given the Tokyo's wartime depredations. However, the Japanese people do not have a double dose of original sin. Everyone who planned and most everyone who carried out those aggressions are dead. A country which goes through political convulsions before it will send unarmed peacekeepers abroad is not likely to engage in a new round of conquest.
Anyway, the best way to assuage regional concerns is to construct cooperative agreements and structures between Japan and its neighbors. Democratic countries from South Korea to Australia to India have an interest in working with Tokyo to ensure that the Asia-Pacific remains peaceful and prosperous. Japan has much at stake and could contribute much. Tokyo could still choose to do little. But it shouldn't expect America to fill any defense gap. The claim is oft-made that the presence of American forces also help promote regional stability beyond Japan. How never seems to be explained. Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation contends: "the Marines on Okinawa are an indispensable and irreplaceable element of any U.S. response to an Asian crisis." But the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), while packing a potent military punch, actually has little to do. The MEF isn't necessary to support manpower-rich South Korea, which is capable of deterring a North Korean attack. The Marines wouldn't be useful in a war against China, unless the Pentagon is planning a surprise landing in Tiananmen Square to seize Mao Zedong's mausoleum. If conflict breaks out over Taiwan or various contested islands, America would rely on air and naval units. Where real instability might arise on the ground, only a fool would introduce U.S. troops — insurgency in Indonesia, civil strife in the Solomon Islands or Fiji, border skirmishes between Thailand and Burma or Cambodia. General Ronald Fogleman, a former Air Force Chief of Staff, argued that the Marines "serve no military function. They don't need to be in Okinawa to meet any time line in any war plan. I'd bring them back to California. The reason they don't want to bring them back to California is that everyone would look at them and say, ‘Why do you need these twenty thousand?'" Do U.S. bases in Okinawa help dampen regional arms spending? That's another point more often asserted than proven. Even if so, however, that isn't necessarily to Washington's benefit. The best way to ensure a responsible Chinese foreign and military policy is for Beijing's neighbors to be well-armed and willing to cooperate among themselves. Then local or regional conflicts would be much less likely to end up in Washington.

1AC: Solvency (2/2)
Only the plan causes Japan to overcome its security dependence and cooperate with other allies to deter violence in the region
(Doug Bandow, Senior fellow at the CATO Institute, 3/25/10, Huffington Post ("Okinawa and the Problem of Empire", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-bandow/okinawa-and-the-problems_b_512610.html//avi))

True, politicians and analysts alike routinely term America's alliances "cornerstones" and "linchpins" of U.S. security, regional stability, and world peace. In reality, today's alliance are unnecessary at best and dangerous transmission belts of conflict and war at worst. Consider Japan. President Barack Obama says that "America's commitment to Japan's security is unshakable," but does that mean the U.S. forever must defend that nation? The 1951 military treaty committed Japan to "increasingly assume responsibility for its own defense against direct and indirect aggression." In fact, Tokyo is capable of defending itself. Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada recently expressed doubt that "Japan on its own can face up to such risks" as China, but Tokyo needs a deterrent capability, not superiority. That is well within Japan's means. Certainly the U.S. would be far more secure if its allies and friends created forces to discourage aggression and worked together to encourage regional stability, rather than depended on Washington. If the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force located on Okinawa is not needed to defend Japan, then what is it for? South Korea vastly outranges the North on virtually every measure of power and can do whatever is necessary to deter North Korean adventurism. There also is much talk, offered unceasingly and uncritically, about maintaining regional stability. But what invasions, border fights, naval clashes, missile threats, and full-scale wars are the Marines preventing? And if conflict broke out, what would the Marines do? Launch a surprise landing in Beijing's Tiananmen Square during a war over Taiwan? Aid Indonesia, really the Javan Empire, in suppressing one or another group of secessionists? Help Thailand in a scrape with Burma triggered by the latter's guerrilla conflict spilling over the border? America has no reason to enter conflicts which threaten neither the U.S. nor a critical ally. Still, if the U.S. government desires to defend Japan and Japan wants to be defended, Washington inevitably must deal with the national government in Tokyo and ask for the best possible lodgings for its forces. Okinawa's travails will always be irrelevant from the U.S. government's standpoint. It's up to Japan to decide on where to place foreign bases and then to work with its prefectures and towns accordingly. Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, stated the brutal truth: "local conditions come to play, but these big decisions are at the level of our central governments." The Japanese government prefers to blame the U.S., since most Japanese don't want to change the status quo. Okinawans -- from the smallest, poorest, and most distant prefecture -- pay to host U.S. forces, leaving the rest of Japan free to enjoy the benefits while suffering little of the inconvenience. Okinawan opposition is undercut through subsidies from the central government and overridden by raw political power, since the prefecture has just a handful of seats in the national Diet. Explained Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano: "It's not necessary to have the understanding and agreement from the local people." Thus, the issue of fairness to Okinawa is tied to the more basic question of Japan's foreign policy and military posture. If Tokyo demands alliance equality, it must behave in a way that justifies being treated as an equal. Which means Japan must take over responsibility for its own defense, as well as contribute to regional and global security. The Japanese people may decide that the threats they face are small -- as, indeed, they are today. However, the future might not be so safe. Brad Glosserman of the Pacific Forum CSIS argues that "Northeast Asia, from a Japanese perspective, is a scary place." A threatening North Korea and aggressive China are much bigger potential threats to Tokyo than to Washington. The Japanese government needs to assess future dangers and decide on appropriate responses -- without assuming that the U.S. Marines will show up to the rescue. It is Japan's decision, but it should not be based on the presumption of American intervention. Having made its decision, then Tokyo should reconfigure its forces. Fairness suggests a major drawdown from Okinawa irrespective of whose military is protecting Japan. If the U.S. disengaged militarily, these decisions could be made without pressure from Washington

DDI10-RT-Drones Aff 1AC 7.26

NEEDS PLAN TEXT!

Contention 1 is Inherency

Obama increasing commitment to drones now
Jane Mayer, Political Staff Writer, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009, “The Predator War,” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0rsb2Mhvw TP

Since then, the C.I.A. bombardments have continued at a rapid pace. According to a just completed study by the New America Foundation, the number of drone strikes has risen dramatically since Obama became President. During his first nine and a half months in office, he has authorized as many C.I.A. aerial attacks in Pakistan as George W. Bush did in his final three years in office. The study’s authors, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, report that the Obama Administration has sanctioned at least forty-one C.I.A. missile strikes in Pakistan since taking office—a rate of approximately one bombing a week. So far this year, various estimates suggest, the C.I.A. attacks have killed between three hundred and twenty-six and five hundred and thirty-eight people. Critics say that many of the victims have been innocent bystanders, including children

Drone missions do nothing to halt increased terrorism
Matthew Frankel, Federal Executive Fellow, Foreign Policy, 21st Century Defense Initiative, Brookings, June 1, 2010, “Why Killing Enemy Leaders Rarely Works,” http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0601_al_qaeda_frankel.aspx TP

Much has been made of Monday’s announcement of the recent killing of the number three man in all of Al Qaeda. The consensus seems to be that Mustafa Abu al-Yazid’s death will be a significant blow in the war on terror, but it’s much more likely to have no effect at all. If the past seven years in Iraq is any indication, the removal of enemy leaders has little to no impact on the group’s ability to conduct attacks against us. The recent killing of top two leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayub al-Masri and Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, is a perfect example. "The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," said General Ray Odierno, commander of US forces in Iraq, after the operation, which took place late last month. The good feeling lasted less than three weeks, however. A series of devastating jihadist-led coordinated attacks across Iraq, killing over 100 people, soon reduced Odierno’s comments to mere hyperbole. And the fact that Masri’s death didn’t mean the end of Al Qaeda in Iraq shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has followed Iraq closely since 2003. In the past, whenever officials have pronounced upon the significance of an enemy killing, it has always proven premature.

Contention 2 is Counter-Insurgency

Drone presence in afghanistan doubled this past year – no signs of let-up
NYTimes, 2/19/2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/world/asia/20drones.html

The use of the drones has expanded quickly and virtually unnoticed in Afghanistan. The Air Force now flies at least 20 Predator drones — twice as many as a year ago — over vast stretches of hostile Afghan territory each day.
They are mostly used for surveillance, but have also carried out more than 200 missile and bomb strikes over the last year, including 14 strikes near Marja in the last few days, newly released military records show. That is three times as many strikes in the past year as in Pakistan, where the drones have gotten far more attention and proved more controversial for their use in a country where the United States does not have combat forces.


1/3 of drone victims are civilians
Greg Bruno, Staff Writer, Council on Foreign Relations, July 19, 2010, U.S. Drone Activities in Pakistan, http://www.cfr.org/publication/22659/us_drone_activities_in_pakistan.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fby_type%2Fbackgrounder TP

Civilian casualties are another significant concern. The New America Foundation, for instance, found that of the roughly one thousand to fourteen hundred deaths attributed to drone strikes since 2004, approximately one-third were civilians. U.S. intelligence officials dispute this calculation and insist smaller missiles and better targeting procedures have limited collateral damage (WashPost).

Even if drones are effective, there is a 1-50 dead insurgent to insurgent recruit ratio
Malou Innocent, specialist at the Cato Institute on Middle Easte and Persian Gulf security issues, member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, 8/25/2009. [Cato Institute, The US Must Reassess Its Drone Policy]

America's interests lie in ensuring the virus of anti-American radicalism does not infect the rest of the region. Yet Washington's attempts to stabilize Afghanistan help destabilize Pakistan, because its actions serve as a recruiting tool for Pakistani Taliban militants. Just as one would not kill a fly with a sledgehammer, using overwhelming firepower to kill a single insurgent creates collateral damage that can recruit 50 more. Military force against insurgents must be applied precisely and discriminately. On the ground, Pakistani security forces lack training, equipment, and communication gear to carry out a low-intensity counterinsurgency. But drones provide a poor substitute if the goal is to engage rather than alienate the other side.


Drones counterproductive in war on terror - Taliban’s appeal to victim discontent
Jeff Dressler, Research Analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, The Compass, Real Clear World Blog, September 1, 2009, “Surge in Afghanistan: A Response to George Will,” http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2009/09/surge_in_afghanistan_a_respons.html#more TP

Nobody said it was going to be easy. The day after Gen. Stanley McChrystal sent his strategic assessment to the Pentagon, the call for retreat is already being sounded, this time, from columnist George Will. But Will’s article demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of not only the nature of Afghanistan, but counterinsurgency writ large. Will quotes a Dutch commander in-theatre to highlight the backwards, primitive nature of Afghanistan…"like walking through the Old Testament” the commander said. Surely, Afghanistan does not conform to western understanding of a modern, advanced society… and America does not seek to make it such. Afghans are smart, they understand more than many Westerners assume. To their credit, the majority of Afghanistan’s population supports the war against the Taliban, including coalition and Afghan efforts to achieve some real progress after eight years of neglect. All they want in return is security. Thus far, they haven’t gotten it. Delving into Will’s discussion of counterinsurgency, he is somewhat correct in describing the Taliban’s ability to “evaporate and then return.” But the Taliban are not superhuman, they are not ghosts. Their ability to “evaporate and then return” is predicated on two current conditions: 1) the absence of sufficient Afghan and coalition forces; and 2) the ability to coerce and intimidate local populations. Much like in Iraq, a sufficiently resourced war (see Surge) and the ability to secure population centers are aimed at removing the insurgency from the population. If this can be achieved, the tide starts to turn. As far as the “time and ratio of forces” required for a successful counterinsurgency campaign… those numbers aren’t hard and fast either. Achieving the proper ratio will not necessarily require a massive coalition footprint for “a decade or more.” It will however require sufficient indigenous security forces to augment and eventually take-over. An entire brigade of the 82nd Airborne has been tasked with exactly that. The new benchmark for the ANSF is 160,000 police (up from 92,000) and 240,000 for the army (up from 134,000). I’m quite confident that the military understands the necessity of fielding a proper security force, both in sheer numbers and capability. As far as country’s history of central governance, Will contends that it “never” had one. That’s not exactly true either: “Afghanistan has been an independent country since the 18th century, with such strong monarchs as Dost Mohammad, who drove out a British incursion in 1842 and ruled for 33 years. Under King Mohammad Zahir Shah, who ruled from 1933 to 1973, Afghanistan made considerable economic and political progress, including the adoption of a fairly democratic written constitution. It was relatively peaceful and stable before a Marxist coup in 1978 set off a long period of war and turmoil whose most consequential events were the Soviet invasion in 1979, the Soviets' departure in 1989, and the rise of the Taliban starting in 1994.” What’s really surprising about Will’s commentary is his trumpeting of a counterterrorism strategy as the new “revised” policy. This failed Rumsfeldian approach is one of the most glaring reasons for the strategic failures of the past several years. Will contends that this can be done alone from “offshore” drones, intelligence and missiles. Unfortunately, effective counterterrorism is predicated on effective intelligence, that which can only been garnered through an effective counterinsurgency strategy. Some would argue that “offshore counterterrorism” would have serious unintended consequences, some of which we have been privy to over the past several years. Collateral damage (the death of innocent civilians) is perhaps the surest way to turn the population against Afghan and coalition efforts. In short, we become the enemy while the real enemy, the Taliban, capitalize on local discontent. For this very reason, one of General McChrystal’s first orders was to restrict the use of airstrikes, “air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly,” he said. What we have seen in Afghanistan, even to this very day is the remnants of Gen. McKiernan’s campaign plan. Over the past several years, we have been fighting in the wrong places, in the wrong way and with the wrong assumptions. A significant shortage of resources have contributed to the deleterious situation. A full-spectrum counterinsurgency strategy is needed, and that is exactly what was delivered to the Pentagon yesterday. There is nothing wrong with questioning the rational of an ongoing war; in fact, it is often quite the responsible thing to do. That said, a misguided call to inaction can be dangerous indeed. Gen. McChrystal was asked to conduct a 60-day campaign review of the war in Afghanistan. Yesterday, he sent that review to the Pentagon. His conclusion: “success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort.”

Taliban propaganda projects Pakistani puppets – leads to instability
Jane Mayer, Staff writer for The New Yorker, 10/26/2009 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer

After such attacks, the Taliban, attempting to stir up anti-American sentiment in the region, routinely claims, falsely, that the victims are all innocent civilians. In several Pakistani cities, large protests have been held to decry the drone program. And, in the past year, perpetrators of terrorist bombings in Pakistan have begun presenting their acts as “revenge for the drone attacks.” In recent weeks, a rash of bloody assaults on Pakistani government strongholds has raised the spectre that formerly unaligned militant groups have joined together against the Zardari Administration. David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency warfare expert who has advised General David Petraeus in Iraq, has said that the propaganda costs of drone attacks have been disastrously high. Militants have used the drone strikes to denounce the Zardari government—a shaky and unpopular regime—as little more than an American puppet. A study that Kilcullen co-wrote for the Center for New American Security, a think tank, argues, “Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family, a new revenge feud, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased.” His co-writer, Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger who has advised General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, told me, “Neither Kilcullen nor I is a fundamentalist—we’re not saying drones are not part of the strategy. But we are saying that right now they are part of the problem. If we use tactics that are killing people’s brothers and sons, not to mention their sisters and wives, we can work at cross-purposes with insuring that the tribal population doesn’t side with the militants. Using the Predator is a tactic, not a strategy.

Extremist success means war
Peter Brookes, Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, 7/2/2007 (Peter, “BARACK'S BLUNDER INVADE A NUCLEAR POWER?”http://www.nypost.com/seven/08022007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/baracks_blunder_opedcolumnists_peter_brookes.htm?page=2) DDI 09 IMPACT FILE

The fall of Musharraf's government might well lead to a takeover by pro-U.S. elements of the Pakistani military - but other possible outcomes are extremely unpleasant, including the ascendance of Islamist factions. The last thing we need is for Islamabad to fall to the extremists. That would exacerbate the problem of those terrorist safe havens that Obama apparently thinks he could invade. And it would also put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal into the wrong hands. That could lead to a number of nightmarish scenarios - a nuclear war with India over Kashmir, say, or the use of nuclear weapons by a terrorist group against any number of targets, including the United States.


Contention 3 is [[#_msocom_1|[TKP1]]]

Obama’s treaty commitment legitimacy is on the brink—UN and Middle East relations
Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, Chief U.S. Correspondent for the Middle East Broadcast Corporation, December 2009. [Layalina Productions, From Cairo to Goldstone: U.S. Credibility in the Arab World At Stake CS]

President Obama approached the international community with an attitude of cooperation and a preference for diplomacy over military action, and his June speech in Cairo gave new momentum to Arab hopes for a change of course in U.S. foreign policy. He touched on issues that resonate with the Arab world when he articulated his view on the role of international law in foreign policy. The president contrasted his own approach with the principles of his predecessor President W. Bush, highlighting international legal standards’ "vital role in fighting terrorism,” and stating that the Bush administration’s decision to “cast aside” important frameworks, such as the Geneva Conventions, served as a major setback to the promotion of American values abroad. June 4th in Cairo brought forth many hopes and promises, marking a new era in of U.S.-Arab relations. However, since the speech, Obama has had to face only one true test of his administration's rhetoric in the eyes of Arabs: the U.S. response to the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict - or as it has come to be known, the "Goldstone report." An experienced South African judge, Richard Goldstone was appointed to investigate the possibility of war crimes committed during the Israeli operation against the militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The war commenced on December 27, 2008, and lasted for almost three weeks. According to the Palestine Center for Human Rights(2) , the war resulted in the death of 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians (including over 400 women and children), another 4,000 wounded, some permanently disabled and with no source of income, and the death of 13 Israelis. The 575-page report holds both Israel and Hamas responsible for committing war crimes, and demands that both sides carry out an independent and transparent internal investigation. When the report was handed over to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, it presented both a crisis and an opportunity to Obama's Middle East peace strategy. Israel relied again on an automatic U.S. veto on its behalf, despite some signs of unprecedented nuance in the administration's response. If the Cairo speech marked a new era in U.S.-Arab relations, the challenges presented by the Goldstone report have brought two different narratives of the 2009 Gaza conflict to the surface. However the U.S. chose to react officially to the report would demonstrate whether or not a real a change had occurred, and whether the new administration was truly stepping away (or not) from its perceived bias towards Israel. The House of Representatives voted 344 to 36 in favor ofa non-binding resolutioncalling on President Obama to maintain his opposition to the Goldstone report. The Obama administration also ordered its ambassador in Geneva to vote against the report and rally support from other countries in an attempt to block it from reaching the UN general assembly for discussion. The repercussions of the efforts sent shock waves across the Arab world. Any high hopes that the new administration was diverging from the previous one on policy soon evaporated. The visible pressure at the UN Human Rights Council to thwart the Goldstone recommendations caused significant negative implications for Obama's reputation and his broader public diplomacy efforts in the region. This single act greatly damaged America's image across the Arab world at a time when perceptions were changing for the better. It further reinforced the view that Israel can act with impunity and that the United States will side with it regardless. Such actions are bound to arm extremists in the region with the perfect propaganda tool-- that the United States is not serious about prosecuting human rights violations with regards to the rights of civilians granted under the fourth Geneva Convention.


Obama is dodging illegal drone mission definitions – status quo US will violate Geneva Policy
Jane Mayer, Staff writer for The New Yorker, 10/26/2009 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer TP

Under international law, in order for the U.S. government to legally target civilian terror suspects abroad it has to define a terrorist group as one engaging in armed conflict, and the use of force must be a “military necessity.” There must be no reasonable alternative to killing, such as capture, and to warrant death the target must be “directly participating in hostilities.” The use of force has to be considered “proportionate” to the threat. Finally, the foreign nation in which such targeted killing takes place has to give its permission. Many lawyers who have looked at America’s drone program in Pakistan believe that it meets these basic legal tests. But they are nevertheless troubled, as the U.S. government keeps broadening the definition of acceptable high-value targets. Last March, the Obama Administration made an unannounced decision to win support for the drone program inside Pakistan by giving President Asif Ali Zardari more control over whom to target. “A lot of the targets are nominated by the Pakistanis—it’s part of the bargain of getting Pakistani coöperation,” says Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who has served as an adviser to the Obama Administration on Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the New America Foundation’s study, only six of the forty-one C.I.A. drone strikes conducted by the Obama Administration in Pakistan have targeted Al Qaeda members. Eighteen were directed at Taliban targets in Pakistan, and fifteen were aimed specifically at Baitullah Mehsud. Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani lieutenant general and an authority on security issues, says that the U.S.’s tactical shift, along with the elimination of Mehsud, has quieted some of the Pakistani criticism of the American air strikes, although the bombings are still seen as undercutting the country’s sovereignty. But, given that many of the targeted Pakistani Taliban figures were obscure in U.S. counterterrorism circles, some critics have wondered whether they were legitimate targets for a Predator strike. “These strikes are killing a lot of low-level militants, which raises the question of whether they are going beyond the authorization to kill leaders,” Peter Bergen told me. Roger Cressey, the former National Security Council official, who remains a strong supporter of the drone program, says, “The debate is that we’ve been doing this so long we’re now bombing low-level guys who don’t deserve a Hellfire missile up their ass.” (In his view, “Not every target has to be a rock star.”) The Obama Administration has also widened the scope of authorized drone attacks in Afghanistan. An August report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee disclosed that the Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List—the Pentagon’s roster of approved terrorist targets, containing three hundred and sixty-seven names—was recently expanded to include some fifty Afghan drug lords who are suspected of giving money to help finance the Taliban. These new targets are a step removed from Al Qaeda. According to the Senate report, “There is no evidence that any significant amount of the drug proceeds goes to Al Qaeda.” The inclusion of Afghan narcotics traffickers on the U.S. target list could prove awkward, some observers say, given that President Hamid Karzai’s running mate, Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, and the President’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are strongly suspected of involvement in narcotics. Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, who has written extensively on military matters, said, “Are they going to target Karzai’s brother?” He went on, “We should be very careful about who we define as the enemy we have to kill. Leaders of Al Qaeda, of course. But you can’t kill people on Tuesday and negotiate with them on Wednesday.”

Specifically, drone warfare undermines article 51 of the IHL
UN Human Rights Council, 5/2010, p. 13, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf

A more difficult question concerns the extent to which persistent but discrete attacks, including by a non-state actor, would constitute an “armed attack” under Article 51. In a series of decisions, the ICJ has established a high threshold for the kinds of attacks that would justify the extraterritorial use of force in self-defence.80 In its view, sporadic, lowintensity attacks do not rise to the level of armed attack that would permit the right to use extraterritorial force in self-defence, and the legality of a defensive response must be judged in light of each armed attack, rather than by considering occasional, although perhaps successive, armed attacks in the aggregate. While this approach has been criticized,81 few commentators have supported an approach that would accommodate the invocation of the right to self-defence in response to most of the types of attack that have been at issue in relation to the extraterritorial targeted killings discussed here. Any such approach would diminish hugely the value of the foundational prohibition contained in Article 51


Compliance with the Geneva Convention restores US treaty credibility
Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, Chief US Correspondent for the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, December 2009. [Layalina Productions, From Cairo to Goldstone: US Credibility in the World at Stake] CS

President Obama approached the international community with an attitude of cooperation and a preference for diplomacy over military action, and his June speech in Cairo gave new momentum to Arab hopes for a change of course in U.S. foreign policy. He touched on issues that resonate with the Arab world when he articulated his view on the role of international law in foreign policy. The president contrasted his own approach with the principles of his predecessor President W. Bush, highlighting international legal standards’ "vital role in fighting terrorism,” and stating that the Bush administration’s decision to “cast aside” important frameworks, such as the Geneva Conventions, served as a major setback to the promotion of American values abroad. June 4th in Cairo brought forth many hopes and promises, marking a new era in of U.S.-Arab relations. However, since the speech, Obama has had to face only one true test of his administration's rhetoric in the eyes of Arabs: the U.S. response to the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict - or as it has come to be known, the "Goldstone report." An experienced South African judge, Richard Goldstone was appointed to investigate the possibility of war crimes committed during the Israeli operation against the militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The war commenced on December 27, 2008, and lasted for almost three weeks. According to the Palestine Center for Human Rights(2) , the war resulted in the death of 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians (including over 400 women and children), another 4,000 wounded, some permanently disabled and with no source of income, and the death of 13 Israelis. The 575-page report holds both Israel and Hamas responsible for committing war crimes, and demands that both sides carry out an independent and transparent internal investigation. When the report was handed over to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, it presented both a crisis and an opportunity to Obama's Middle East peace strategy. Israel relied again on an automatic U.S. veto on its behalf, despite some signs of unprecedented nuance in the administration's response. If the Cairo speech marked a new era in U.S.-Arab relations, the challenges presented by the Goldstone report have brought two different narratives of the 2009 Gaza conflict to the surface. However the U.S. chose to react officially to the report would demonstrate whether or not a real a change had occurred, and whether the new administration was truly stepping away (or not) from its perceived bias towards Israel. The House of Representatives voted 344 to 36 in favor ofa non-binding resolutioncalling on President Obama to maintain his opposition to the Goldstone report. The Obama administration also ordered its ambassador in Geneva to vote against the report and rally support from other countries in an attempt to block it from reaching the UN general assembly for discussion. The repercussions of the efforts sent shock waves across the Arab world. Any high hopes that the new administration was diverging from the previous one on policy soon evaporated. The visible pressure at the UN Human Rights Council to thwart the Goldstone recommendations caused significant negative implications for Obama's reputation and his broader public diplomacy efforts in the region. This single act greatly damaged America's image across the Arab world at a time when perceptions were changing for the better. It further reinforced the view that Israel can act with impunity and that the United States will side with it regardless. Such actions are bound to arm extremists in the region with the perfect propaganda tool-- that the United States is not serious about prosecuting human rights violations with regards to the rights of civilians granted under the fourth Geneva Convention.

Current drone treaty hypocrisy directly undermines International Rule of Law – Plan insures compliance
Makhijani, President @ The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research IEER, Ph.D, John Burroughs, Executive Director, Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy, legal coordinator for hearings on nuclear weapons @ the International Court of Justice, Apex Press, 2003, http://www.ieer.org/reports/treaties/execsumm.pdf TP

The evolution of international law since World War II is largely a response to the demands of states and individuals living within a global society with a deeply integrated world economy. In this global society, the repercussions of the actions of states, non-state actors, and individuals are not confined within borders, whether we look to greenhouse gas accumulations, nuclear testing, the danger of accidental nuclear war, or the vast massacres of civilians that have taken place over the course of the last hundred years and still continue. Multilateral agreements increasingly have been a primary instrument employed by states to meet extremely serious challenges of this kind, for several reasons. They clearly and publicly embody a set of universally applicable expectations, including prohibited and required practices and policies. In other words, they articulate global norms, such as the protection of human rights and the prohibitions of genocide and use of weapons of mass destruction. They establish predictability and accountability in addressing a given issue. States are able to accumulate expertise and confidence by participating in the structured system offered by a treaty. However, influential U.S. policymakers are resistant to the idea of a treaty-based international legal system because they fear infringement on U.S. sovereignty and they claim to lack confidence in compliance and enforcement mechanisms. This approach has dangerous practical 27 implications for international cooperation and compliance with norms. U.S. treaty partners do not enter into treaties expecting that they are only political commitments by the United States that can be overridden based on U.S. interests. When a powerful and influential state like the United States is seen to treat its legal obligations as a matter of convenience or of national interest alone, other states will see this as a justification to relax or withdraw from their own commitments. If the United States wants to require another state to live up to its treaty obligations, it may find that the state has followed the U.S. example and opted out of compliance. Undermining the international system of treaties is likely to have particularly significant consequences in the area of peace and security. Even though the United States is uniquely positioned as the economic and military sole superpower, unilateral actions are insufficient to protect its people. For example, since September 11, prevention of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is an increasing priority. The U.S. requires cooperation from other countries to prevent and detect proliferation, including through the multilateral disarmament and nonproliferation treaties. No legal system is foolproof, domestically or internationally. While violations do occur, “the dictum that most nations obey international law most of the time holds true today with greater force than at any time during the last century.” And legal systems should not be abandoned because some of the actors do not comply. In the international as in the domestic sphere, enforcement requires machinery for deciding when there has been a violation, namely verification and transparency arrangements. Such arrangements also provide an incentive for compliance under ordinary circumstances. Yet for several of treaties discussed in this report, including the BWC, CWC, and CTBT, one general characteristic of the U.S. approach has been to try to exempt itself from transparency and verification arrangements. It bespeaks a lack of good faith if the United States wants near-perfect knowledge of others’ compliance so as to be able to detect all possible violations, while also wanting all too often to shield itself from scrutiny. While many treaties lack internal explicit provisions for sanctions, there are means of enforcement. Far more than is generally understood, states are very concerned about formal international condemnation of their actions. A range of sanctions is also available, including withdrawal of privileges under treaty regimes, arms and commodity embargoes, travel bans, reductions in international financial assistance or loans, and freezing of state or individual leader assets. Institutional mechanisms are available to reinforce compliance with treaty regimes, including the U.N. Security Council and the International Court of Justice. Regarding the latter, however, the United States has withdrawn from its general jurisdiction. One explanation for increasing U.S. opposition to the treaty system is that the United States is an “honorable country” that does not need treaty limits to do the right thing. This view relies on U.S. military strength above all and assumes that the U.S. actions are intrinsically right, recalling the ideology of “Manifest Destiny.” This is at odds with the very notion that the rule of law is possible in global affairs. If the rule of power rather than the rule of law becomes the norm, especially in the context of the present inequalities and injustices around the world, security is likely to be a casualty. International security can best be achieved through coordinated local, national, regional and global actions and cooperation. Treaties like all other tools in this toolbox are imperfect instruments. Like a national law, a treaty may be unjust or unwise, in whole or in part. If so, it can be amended. But without a framework of multilateral agreements, the alternative is for states to 28 decide for themselves when action is warranted in their own interests, and to proceed to act unilaterally against others when they feel aggrieved. This is a recipe for the powerful to be police, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.


US submission to International Rule of Law strengthens UN mediation, solving all conflict and war
David M. Morris, Commander, Judge Advocate General's Corps, United States Navy. Summer, 1996 “From War to Peace: A Study of Cease-Fire Agreements and the Evolving Role of the United Nations”, 36 Va. J. Int'l L. 801 TP

The heart of compliance pull is legitimacy and the rule of law. The legitimacy of a state in the eyes of the international community and among its people is affected by the state's own adherence to [*821] the rule of law. An outlaw state lacks legitimacy in the international community, and over time it will lose legitimacy among its citizens. The existence of the U.N. and its capacity and authority for mediation of conflicts along with the state's need for legitimacy - from which the state's own power over its citizens and its international standing derives - presents a "nose of the camel" dilemma. n78 A state which desires to be seen as a responsible international actor and good steward of its citizens' interests can hardly flout attempts by the U.N. to offer mediatory services; yet, having acknowledged the U.N.'s prerogative by letting U.N. representatives "under the tent," that state will find it difficult to withstand U.N. and other international pressure to moderate its behavior and accept constraints on its freedom of action. Two hypotheticals may help illuminate how the norms created by the Charter and the actions of the Security Council serve as constraints. If, for example, a state justifies its initial use of force on grounds of self-defense under Article 51, it will not be able to maintain that right in the face of Security Council actions to restore or maintain peace, since the right exists only until the Security Council acts. n79 If a state jeopardizes the Security Council's attempt to resolve the threat to peace by taking military measures, it cannot rely on Article 51 to justify its actions and will find itself outside the Charter boundaries on the use of force. In a similar way, if a state consents to the presence of a peacekeeping force as part of the Security Council's efforts to resolve a conflict there is an implicit good faith obligation to allow the force the facilities and necessary freedom of movement to fulfill its mandate. n80 To do [*822] otherwise would obstruct the will of the international community and the authority of the U.N. and would rightly result in international condemnation. In both examples, states attempting to conform their actions to well-recognized international standards find themselves having lost significant freedom of action. Ernst Haas described the dynamic that forces such behavior modification even among unwilling states: In short, states devoid of altruism can be reasonably expected to become aware of their enmeshment in a situation of strategic interdependence, of mutual awareness that their moves depend on how they perceive the perceptions of the antagonist, whose array of options depends on the same double calculation. The policy implication of this constraint is the maxim "don't push too hard", under conditions of potential later danger and under considerable uncertainty. Paradoxically, this system of interaction imposes rationality on otherwise irrational states. n81 When the calculation of perceptions and interests is not only bilateral but multilateral, among not only the parties themselves but also the members of the Security Council who may have a stake in the outcome, the sheer complexity of the question reinforces conservatism and compliance with expected norms of behavior. The case studies show that powerful states, even permanent members of the Security Council, will not always benefit from military superiority. The existence of a U.N. cease-fire narrows the justification for renewing hostilities on the grounds of a violation, and indeed changes a basic legal tenet of the traditional armistice that allowed serious violations to be treated as a material breach of the agreement and grounds for an immediate resumption of hostilities. Binding cease-fire resolutions and U.N.-sponsored armistice agreements implementing and extending them are usually of unlimited duration, unlike their historical predecessors. Although terms of the armistice agreements dealing with important but collateral issues such as verification regimes or implementation mechanisms may fail, the overriding obligation not to resort to force as a [*823] means of dispute settlement is deemed severable and continues to be binding. Issues involving evacuation of cut-off military forces and exchange of prisoners of war and guerrilla fighters are flexible and often solved pragmatically in a way that is broader than the requirements of positive international law. On the other hand, large-scale U.N.-sponsored enforcement actions may impose a range of sanctions and international implementation and verification regimes simply unthinkable under the war conventions as they existed prior to the Charter. Saying that the Charter and the resolutions of the Security Council impose significant restraints on state behavior that did not exist under the prior regime of the war conventions is not to say that states or sub-national warring factions will always bend to the will of the international community. William Durch has developed three basic hypotheses about when peacekeeping should be attempted, as well as about what makes it work. n82 The hypotheses offer valuable insights on the closely related issue of when states honor U.N. cease-fire resolutions. First, Durch posits that "peacekeeping requires local consent, and consent derives from local perceptions of the impartiality and moral authority of the peacekeepers' sponsoring organization." n83 Second, "peacekeeping requires the support of the Great Powers and the United States in particular." n84 Third, "peacekeeping requires a prior alteration of the local parties' basic objectives, from winning everything to salvaging something; a frequent corollary of attitude change is combat exhaustion or battlefield stalemate." n85 Another commentator, Mircea Malitza, echoed Durch and concluded that peacekeeping operations "come into being as soon as the parties reach the conclusion that the battlefield no longer promises victory, or resources are exhausted, or when they feel the condemnation of international opinion." n86 The case studies which follow support the observations of Durch and Malitza: cease-fire resolutions are often not honored when a party believes that its objectives may be achieved through military force at an acceptable price. The case studies also show, however, that "winning" in a military sense does not always result [*824] in keeping the fruits of victory, and that the force of international opinion as expressed in Security Council resolutions constrains combat activity and creates a context for the political negotiations that follow once the fighting has ended.

Contention 4 is Virtual War

The union of modern warfare and the ethical imperatives of US foreign policy elevated virtual war to a virtuous war. Mechanized warfare pixallizes the enemy, propagating a clean war and hiding the suffering of the victim
James Der Derian, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Research Professor of International Relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, 2000, “Virtuous War/Virtual Theory”, jstor, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2626459.pdf
So, is the virtualization of violence a revolution in diplomatic, military, let alone human affairs? On its own, no. However, deployed with a new ethical imperative for global democratic reform, it could well be so. In spite of, and perhaps soon because of, efforts to spread a democratic peace through globali- zation and humanitarian intervention, war is ascending to an even higher plane, from the virtual to the virtuous. At one time, the two words virtual and virtuous were hardly distinguishable (although the Latin virtuosos preceded virtualis). Both originated in the medieval notion of a power inherent in the supernatural, of a divine being endowed with natural virtue. And both carried a moral weight, from the Greek and Roman sense of virtue, of properties and qualities of right conduct. But their meanings diverged in modern usage, with 'virtual' taking a morally neutral, more technical tone, while 'virtuous' lost its sense of exerting influence by means of inherent qualities. Now they seem ready to be rejoined by current efforts to effect ethical change through technological and martial means. The United States, as deus ex machina of global politics, is leading the way in this virtual revolution. Its diplomatic and military policies are increasingly based on technological and representational forms of discipline, deterrence, and com- pellence that could best be described as virtuous war. At the heart of virtuous war is the technical capability and ethical imperative to threaten and, if necessary, actualize violence from a distance-with no or minimal casualties. Using net- worked information and virtual technologies to bring 'there' here in near-real time and with near-verisimilitude, virtuous war exercises a comparative as well as strategic advantage for the digitally advanced. It has become the 'fifth dimen- sion' of US global hegemony. On the surface, virtuous war cleans up the political discourse as well as the battlefield. Fought in the same manner as they are represented, by real-time surveillance and TV 'live-feeds', virtuous wars promote a vision of bloodless, humanitarian, hygienic wars. We can rattle off casualty rates of prototypical virtuous conflicts like the Gulf war (270 Americans lost their lives-more than half through accidents), the Mogadishu raid (i8 Americans killed), and the Kosovo air campaign (barring accidents, a remarkable zero casualty conflict for 772
Virtuous war/virtual theory the NATO forces). Yet, in spite of valorous efforts by human rights organi- zations, most people would probably come up short on acceptable figures for the other side of the casualty list. Post-Vietnam, the United States has made many digital advances; public body counts of the enemy are not one of them. Unlike other forms of warfare, virtuous war has an unsurpassed power to commute death, to keep it out of sight, out of mind. In simulated preparations and virtual executions of war, there is a high risk that one learns how to kill but not to take responsibility for it, one experiences 'death' but not the tragic consequences of it. In virtuous war we now face not just the confusion but the pixillation of war and game on the same screen.


Virtual war separates the pilot and the target by creating a dichotomy of “my space” and “their space”. This warfare is absent of any ethical relation to the victim whose suffering is sanitized by the computer screen
Derek Gregory, Department of Geography University of British Columbia at Vancouver, 2006, Arab World Geographer, “‘In another time-zone, the bombs fall unsafely….’Targets, civilians and late modern war*”, http://web.mac.com/derekgregory/iWeb/Site/The%20city-as-target_files/%27In%20another%20time%20zone%27_illustrated-2.pdf
The second refinement of late modern war has been to produce an electronic disjuncture between ‘the eye’ and ‘the target’ that acts as meridian and membrane between ‘our space’ and ‘their space’. 31 But this electronic disjuncture is an extraordinarily labile medium that sustains both a radical separation – a sort of time-space expansion – and the most acute time-space compression. On one side, ‘their space’ is reduced to a space empty of people; the visual technology of late modern warfare produces the space of the enemy as an abstract space on an electronic screen of co-ordinates and pixels. These high-level abstractions sustain the illusion of an authorizing master-subject who asserts both visual mastery and violent possession through what Caren Kaplan calls the ‘cosmic view’ of air power. This is vertical geopolitics with a vengeance: ‘Outside the wire of Balad Air Base [north of Baghdad], the insurgency still rages and sectarian war looms,’ reported Michael Hirsh in May 2006, ‘but the sky above is a deep azure and, no small thing, wholly American-owned.’ 32 These high-level abstractions deploy a discourse of objectivity – so that elevation secures the higher Truth – and a discourse of object-ness that reduces the world to a series of objects in a visual plane. As I have argued elsewhere, bombs and missiles then rain down on on K-A-B-U-L but not on the city of Kabul, its innocent inhabitants terrorised and their homes shattered by another round in the incessant wars choreographed by superpowers from a safe distance. And the IDF can render the landscape of southern Lebanon as a ‘kill-box’, so that during the night of 29 July 2006 its forces can attack only ‘structures, headquarters and weapon facilities’, ‘vehicles, bridges and routes’, and the combat zone is magically emptied of all human beings. The result, fervently desired and artfully orchestrated, is optical detachment. ‘Remote as they are far from “targets”,’ Zygmunt Bauman once observed, ‘scurrying over those they hit too fast to witness the devastation they cause and the blood they spill, the pilots-turned-computer-operators hardly ever have the chance of looking their victims in the face and to survey the human misery they have sowed.’ 33 Just like Mr Barrow venturing into ‘the land of the Bushmen’ in the early nineteenth century, who, according to Mary-Louise Pratt, recorded not the Bushmen but merely ‘scratches on the face of the country’, so these screen images reveal scars on the face of the country but never on the faces of those who have been injured and killed there. 34

Virtual warfare facilitates enemy construction—simulations of war replace reality with our misconceptions of the enemy, perpetuating war over difference
James Der Derian, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Research Professor of International Relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, 2003, “War as a Game”, Brown Journal of World Affairs p. 45-46
The charge of moral equivalency—in which any attempt at explanation is identified as an act of exoneration—should not deter investigations into the dangers of the mimetic relationships operating in war and games. People go to war not only out of rational calculation but also because of how they see, perceive, picture, imagine, and speak of each other: that is, how they construct the difference of other groups as well as the sameness of their own. Bin Lad5en and Saddam Hussein are not the first to mine this act of mimesis for political advantage. From Greek tragedy and Roman gladiatorial spectacles to futurist art and fascist rallies, mimetic violence has regularly overpowered democratic discourse. The question, then, is how long after Baghdad has fallen will this mimetic game of terror and counter-terror last? Bush, Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein need their mimetic foes—it takes two to play. Without a reciprocal hatred, their politics and prophecies lose their self-fulfilling powers. Historically, terrorist movements either evolve into states, or, without a mass base, they quickly weaken and rarely last longer than a decade. And empires inevitably, by over-reach or defeat, fall. However, this mimetic struggle, magnified by the media, fought by advanced technologies of destruction, and unchecked by the UN or U.S. allies, has now developed a logic of its own in which assimilation or extermination become plausible solutions, credible policies. Under such circumstances, one longs for the sure bet, a predictable unfolding of events, or at least a comforting conclusion. “At this stage of the game” (as Schwartzkopf said in the midst of GW1), I have none, because the currently designed game, to rid the world of evil, cannot possibly find an end. Inevitably, what Edmund Burke called the empire of circumstance will surely, and let us hope not too belatedly, trump Bush’s imperial game as well as Bin Laden’s terrorist one. When tempted in the interim by the promise of virtuous war to solve the world’s problems, we best listen to the great Yogi: “If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”


It is our ethical obligation to look beyond the sanitized violence of the computer screen and condemn drone warfare and mediatization for their distancing of war
Derek Gregory, Department of Geography University of British Columbia at Vancouver, 2006, Arab World Geographer, “‘In another time-zone, the bombs fall unsafely….’Targets, civilians and late modern war*”, http://web.mac.com/derekgregory/iWeb/Site/The%20city-as-target_files/%27In%20another%20time%20zone%27_illustrated-2.pdf
On the other side, this erasure of corporeality is twisted into another dimension through late modern war’s annihilation of space through time. The United States has increasingly deployed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as part of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs. In both Afghanistan and Iraq extensive use is made of Predator drones that carry three cameras and two Hellfire missiles. Take-offs and landings are controlled by pilots from Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadrons based at Bagram and Balad Air Bases, but once the drones are airborne the missions are flown by pilots from Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, part of the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, some 7, 000 miles away. When Robert Kaplan visited Indian Springs, he saw the trailers from which the missions were flown. ‘Inside that trailer is Iraq; inside the other, Afghanistan,’ he was told. ‘Inside those trailers you leave North America which falls under Northern Command, and enter the Middle East, the domain of Central Command [CENTCOM]. So much for the tyranny of Geography.’ 35 The irony of that last sentence evidently escaped its author, but the contortions of time and space that it conveys are given renewed force by a third refinement of late modern war: its mediatization. War reporting has a long history, but the emergence of a military-industrial-media-entertainment complex at the end of the twentieth century has sought to elevate late modern war from the virtual to what James Der Derian (fully conscious of the irony) calls the ‘virtuous’. By this, he means to signal both the priority attached to the visual and also the determination ‘to commute death, to keep it out of sight’: to produce war as a space of both constructed and constricted visibility. 36 News media and video games work hand-in-glove with the military to naturalize the reduction of the space of the enemy to a visual field through satellite photographs, bomb-sight views and simulations, and feed in to the staging of late modern war as spectacle. A public is produced that is made accustomed to seeing Baghdad and other ‘alien cities’ as targets; their people, their neighbourhoods, all the mundane geographies of everyday life are hollowed out. 37 These imaginative geographies work in the background to disable any critical politics of witnessing. Civilian casualties are rendered as unseen and uncounted (hence General Franks’ less than frank insistence that ‘We don’t do body counts’); as inevitable but irrelevant (‘collateral damage’, the unintended and unforeseen consequence of military action); or as legitimate targets through complicity or even ‘unworthiness’ (Agamben’s homines sacri). 38 In these ways the public is at once brought close to the action (the spectacle, the thrill) while being removed from its consequences. As Weber argues, this too involves a simultaneous reduction and maximization of distance. When a domestic audience watches video of a missile closing on its target, he writes, ‘The distance to the image, the target, is reduced and eliminated, and with it, the target-image is itself eliminated, vanishes from the screen. At the same time, everything is more distant than ever before. For we “know”, or think we know, that the target has been destroyed, and with it, everything that we have not seen: all the things and people presumably behind those walls. At the same time, we, who have followed this elimination of distance through the eyes of the camera, which is also the eyes of the missile, we are still whole, safe and sane in our homes. We are exhilarated at the sight of such power and control, we are relieved to be still in one piece, but something is indeed being “covered”, the way a “carpet” covers a floor, or the way “carpet bombings” cover an area. What is being covered is ultimately that which technology has always potentially covered: the frailty and limitations of the human body.’ 39 It is time to turn to those frail bodies.

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[[#_msoanchor_1|[TKP1]]]I changed some tags